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NEW LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

TWO NEW WORLDS. I. The 

Infra-World. II. The Supra-World. 
Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. 

THE ELECTRON THEORY : a 

Popular Introduction to the New Theory 
of Electricity and Magnetism. With a 
Preface by G. Johnstone Stoney, M. A., 
D.Sc, F.R.S. With Frontispiece Por- 
trait of Dr. Stoney, and 35 Diagrams in 
the Text. Crown 8vo, 5s. net. 



LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 

LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 



NEW LIGHT 
ON IMMORTALITY 



BV 

E. E. FOURNIER d'ALBE 

B.Sc. (Lonb.), M.R.I. A. 

AUTHOR OF "THE ELECTRON THEORY" AND "TWO NEW WORLDS 

HON. SECRETARY OP THE DUBLIN SECTION OP THE 

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND 
DIAGRAMS IN TEXT 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 

NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 

1908 

All rights reserved 



.f6 






Us 



«3 



°^ 



TO 

MY DEAR WIFE 

EDITH CONSUELO 

THIS BOOK IS 
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/newlightonimmortOOfour 



PREFACE 

The present work has arisen out of the cosmological 
speculations embodied in " Two New Worlds," which 
themselves were suggested by certain recent advances 
in our knowledge of the atoms of matter and of 
electricity. It seemed to me desirable that the new 
materials should be used as soon as possible to 
further the solution of the " question of questions," 
the possibility of human immortality. 

Lest it appear presumptuous for a physicist to 
venture an opinion on such a subject, which is 
usually associated with psychology and theology 
rather than experimental science, I may plead that 
the relations between mind and matter require for 
their elucidation an extensive acquaintance with 
what is actually known about matter and what is 
not known about it. And every one, I think, will 
acknowledge that the relations between mind and 
matter are at the very root of all possible theories 
concerning immortality. Now the physicist is per- 
manently confronted with problems concerning the 
ultimate nature of matter, more so even than the 
chemist, and much more than the physiologist, who 
usually derives his ideas concerning matter from 
elementary text-books of physics and chemistry. 
This explains the fascination which ultimate ques- 



Vlll PREFACE 

tions are found to exert upon representatives of 
physics rather than upon devotees of other branches 
of science. 

This book, then, is an attempt at what we might 
call a Physical Theory of Immortality. Such a 
theory must make the minimum of new assump- 
tions, must not contradict any known law of physics, 
and must bear thinking out in all its consequences 
without leading to qualitative and quantitative 
absurdities. These requisites I have borne steadily 
in mind. The result, to me at all events, has been 
distinctly satisfactory, and although not all the 
points are fully worked out yet, I have, so far, failed 
to discover any inconsistency with the laws and 
experiences of the world we live in. 

I have taken pains to remain throughout in close 
touch with the facts of physiology, and have em- 
bodied some of the most recent results of that great 
science in the following pages. At the same time 
I have guarded myself against accepting those crude 
hypotheses and speculations concerning ultimate 
realities with which some physiologists are inclined 
to cloak their real ignorance concerning the inner 
working of the phenomena they investigate. 

The theory developed in the first two parts of 
this book may be taken, at all events, as a type of a 
theory of immortality which has a chance of being 
accepted by the scientifically trained mind. It 
remains for theologians to declare whether a theory 
of this type can be satisfactorily embodied in their 
systems. On this question I cannot venture to 
express any opinion, but I think they will acknow- 



PREFACE IX 

ledge the obvious advantage of having even a work- 
ing hypothesis of a future life presented to them, 
such as both parties could possibly be brought to 
agree upon. 

In Part III. I have gone a step further. I have 
ventured to include in my survey a large class of 
phenomena which official science has not yet accepted. 
I refer to what are now most usually styled " meta- 
psychical " phenomena, and which form the subject- 
matter of what is known as psychical research. Of 
these I have had little personal experience, but a 
careful examination of the extensive literature of 
the subject has forced upon me the conclusion that 
a large and solid basis of reality is at the bottom of 
these somewhat rare and elusive happenings. That 
being so, it seems naturally a little strange that 
they have not yet been fully recognised. But that 
fate has historically been shared by many other 
facts which did not happen to fit in with the views 
prevailing at the time. To judge from the trend of 
modern opinion, the time is approaching when a 
slight rearrangement of our general principles will 
provide the elasticity necessary to allow of these facts 
being duly placed and catalogued. The step I have 
here taken is therefore not fraught with such dire 
dangers of heterodoxy as some of my scientific 
friends have so kindly warned me of. And, even 
if it were, I should regard it as an obvious and 
imperative duty to state in precise and unambiguous 
language the conclusion I have, after careful exa- 
mination of witnesses on both sides, deliberately 
arrived at. 



X PREFACE 

But it should be understood that the views 
advanced in this book do not stand or fall with the 
reality or otherwise of metapsychieal phenomena. 
The hypothesis sketched out, or something like it, 
is necessary to explain the phenomena of every-day 
life and growth, which are not fully accounted for 
by any theory so far put forward. 

The central beam of the " new light " is the 
rehabilitation of life as the primary and ultimate 
reality. The reduction of the laws of nature to the 
laws of life of that congeries of inferior strata of 
life which we call " matter " is the most important 
of the new conceptions here established. It is, of 
course, an obvious corollary of the theorems pro- 
posed in my " Infra- World." 

In conclusion I beg to thank those kind Dublin 
friends who have assisted me with the loan of books 
and the verification of references, and Mr. E. Dawson 
Rogers and Mr. Henry Withall for the loan of 
valuable photographs. 

E. E. FOURNIER d'ALBE. 



11 Sunbuky Gardens, Dublin, 

September 1908. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 

CHAPTER I 

THE PROBLEM BEFORE US 



PAGE 



The modern attitude towards death — Quantitative aspects of 
death — Unknown territories to explore — Man's growing 
optimism — Attitudes of science and theology — What we 
want to know 1 



CHAPTER II 

WHAT IS LIFE? 

Ancient and modern definitions — Attempts to define life in 
terms of matter — No sharp demarcation between living 
and dead matter — Life more fundamental and " knowable" 
than matter — What do we know about matter? — The 
prestige of matter — Practical evidence of " existence" — 
Orders of reality — Matter expressed in terms of life — 
Laws of Nature — The life of " dead matter " — Low-order 
consciousness — The laws of Nature are the moral laws of 
lower universes — The life period of atoms . . .10 

CHAPTER III 

THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

The human messenger — The organic life-work — Pre-natal 
activity — Development after birth — Social or "waking" 
consciousness takes the place of the organic consciousness 



Xll CONTENTS 

PAGE 

— Vicarious : experience — The function of language — The 
submergence of the organic consciousness — Maturity a 
birth into the social world — The social business of life 
— Racial consciousness — Extension of personality — The 
personality lof communities — Selfishness — The interpre- 
tation of ordinary avocations — Happiness — Wisdom . 30 

CHAPTER IV 

THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

A problem of chemical physics — The human machine — A cell 
mechanism — Wilson on co-ordination — -Intercellular con- 
nections — Protoplasmic continuity — Grades of vitality — 
The organic hierarchy — Self-determination — No purely 
local phenomena — Regeneration — The death penalty — 
The deathless amoeba — Heredity and the Chromosomes — 
The centre of vitality of the cell — An invisible body . 50 



CHAPTER V 

THE LAWS OF NATURE 

A security or a restraint — Who frames the laws ?— Impossi- 
bility — How we generalise — Majesty of natural law — 
Its human import — Discrediting of speculation — British 
and continental schools — Materialism still in power — 
Pax Romano, — Universality of life — Definition of a world 
— The world of atoms — Life of atomic species — The laws 
of nature are the social laws of inferior worlds — Souls 
within souls — Our blood relationship with all life, and 
with all that exists — Superior aggregations ... 76 



CHAPTER VI 

BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

No room for a universal cataclysm — A new monism — Diagram 
of existences — The individual covers an infinite series of 
worlds — Death is the extraction of the vital or directing 



/ 



CONTENTS Xlll 

PAGE 

elements — The search for a spiritual body — Possibility of 
its extraction — Externalisation of personality — Properties 
of the externalised body — A gaseous constitution — Where 
is heaven 1 96 



PART II 
CHAPTER I 

BIRTH 

If life were reversible — Unicellular cell-division — Tetramitus 
— Conjugation — Union of the nuclei — Alternation of 
generations — Necessity of subdivision — The multiplica- 
tion of nuclei — Division and fusion of souls — The function 
of sex — Germ -cells — The problem of development — No 
physical causality conceivable — Infra-world memories . 115 



CHAPTER II 

LIFE AFTER DEATH 

Are we prepared for a theory? — Orthodox reticence— The 
negative attitude of materialism — No real belief in a 
future life — A scientific demonstration required — No 
room for dogma — Modern tests and requirements — Un- 
expected complexity— No finality — Popular ideas reduced 
to absurdity — Our guiding principles — No world outside 
God 131 



CHAPTER III 

THE SOUL-BODY 

Self-determination and the conservation of energy — The soul- 
body consists of material particles or structures— Proposal 
to call them " Psychomeres " — Darwin's "gemmules" — 
Weismann's " determinants "—Relation to chromosomes 



XIV CONTENTS 

PAGE 

and centrosomes — Weight of the soul-body— Effects of 
withdrawal of the psychomeres— Probable experiences — 
Time required for withdrawal — Comparison with chloro- 
form — defence of the organism — The final struggle — The 
moment after — The liberated soul — New functions — 
Earth-memories — Can a soul be wounded ? — The souls of 
cripples — Shape of the soul — Probable resemblance to a 
flame — Familiar instances — Cohesion of the soul-body — 
Assumption of former terrestrial shape .... 144 



CHAPTER IV 

THE SOUL-WORLD 

Where is it ? — Alternative locations — Non-euclidian space — 
The fourth dimension — Three-dimensional space — Choice 
of worlds — The claims of our atmosphere — No valid 
objection — Structure of the atmosphere — Recent investi- 
gations — The isothermal layer — Evidences of stratifica- 
tion — Conditions of aerial life — Anatomical peculiarities 
— Sense-organs — Life in the soul-world .... 160 



CHAPTER V 

INTERCOMMUNICATION 

The soul-world as seen from the earth — The earth as seen 
from the soul-world — Difficulties of intercourse — Rela- 
tions between the two worlds — Not necessarily amicable 
— No absolute separation — Community of ideals necessary 
— The struggle between opposite ideals — The basis of 
ethics — Public aspects of intercommunication — Stamping 
it out — How a truth becomes a myth — The flight of the 
fairies — Recent revivals — Methods of communication — 
Alternative methods — Method of the soul- world — Method 
of the earth-world — Spirit control of an earthly organism 
— Passivity and familiarity — No revelations concerning 
earth-life to be expected — No terrors ahead — Disease and 
death 175 



CONTENTS XV 

CHAPTER VI 

THE WIDER PROBLEMS OP IMMORTALITY 

PAGE 

Do animals possess souls ? — Are animals and plants immortal ? 
— Conditions of immortality — Will and utility — Optional 
immortality — Amalgamation of individuals — Grades of 
disintegration — Blood relationship — Eeincarnation — Its 
difficulties — Karma — Higher entities — Kingly souls — Our 
responsibility — Human power ...... 191 

PART III 
CHAPTER I 

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

Decay of the introspective method — The psychophysical lab- 
oratory — Psychopathology — Hypnotism — Known and un- 
known — A theory more necessary than further facts — 
Summary of our theory in 19 articles — New data to 
be embodied — Boirac's classification — Hypnoid, Magne- 
toid, Spiritoid — Misuse of the word "force" — Definition 
of " force " — The specialisation of science — Most modern 
theories are specialist devices applicable to a limited 
range of facts — Frederick Myers — The panorama of the 
soul — Our modification — Refutable and verifiable — The 
subliminal self — The spirit hypothesis .... 203 

CHAPTER II 

THE STORY OP " KATIE KING " 

The best-aiithenticated record — Miss Florence Cook — Annie 
Morgan, alias " Katie King " — Her full form photographed 
by magnesium light — Reproduced as a wood- engraving — 
May 7, 1873 — Exceptional conditions — Stringent tests — 
Mr. Luxmoore's account — Mr. Harrison's account — Diffi- 
culties of exposure to light — An authentic photograph — 
Alleged " exposure" of the medium — Cromwell Varley's 



XVI CONTENTS 

PAGE 

electrical test — Full report — Further particulars— Mr. 
Coleman's account of the farewell scene — Portrait of 
Miss Florence Cook in 1874 — Separate identities of Miss 
Cook and "Katie King" — Later portrait of Mrs. Corner 
(Florence Cook) — Preserved pieces of "Katie King's" dress 
— Mr. Harrison's account — Souvenirs of hair — Parting 
words — "Florence Marryat's" account — Thorough ex- 
amination of the form — The question of separate identity 
— The press on " Katie King "— Lombroso and Richet . 218 



CHAPTER III 

INTERPRETATION OF THE PHENOMENA 

Clearly impossible" — Why official science was not con- 
vinced — Sir William Crookes' advantages — Why he suc- 
ceeded — A remarkable test — Hasty generalisations — 
Spiritualism in Europe and America — Physical character- 
istics of "spirit forms" — Mental characteristics — No 
shadow ghosts — Voice manifestations — Moral character- 
istics — Sensations of the medium — Drapery — Harrison's 
hypothesis — Alternative interpretations — "Katie King" 
an independent entity — "Katie King" a "double" of 
Florence Cook — The spirit hypothesis the simplest — 
Mechanism of materialisation — Risks and limitations . 268 



CHAPTER IV 

SUPERNORMAL PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

The Dialectical Society's Report — Movements of furniture — 
Method of the spiritualists — Instructions for private in- 
vestigations — Dr. Maxwell on raps — Eusapia Paladino at 
Cambridge — Crookes'catalogue of phenomena — Weighing 
of evidence — Science cannot recognise miracles pure and 
simple— Man supreme in his own sphere — Externalisation 
of energy — Source of power — The demon theory — The 
effect of enlightenment 294 



CONTENTS xvil 

CHAPTER V 

PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 

PAGE 

Difficulties of identification — Identification of living persons 
— Similarity of methods and of evidence — The case of 
Frau von Bille-Dahl — Mr. Aksakoff's observations — 
Mental tests — Communications from Myers, Hodgson, 
and Gurney — Cross-references to "Mrs. Holland" and 
Mrs. Verrall — Sir Oliver Lodge's announcement . . 310 

CHAPTER VI 

CONCLUSIONS 

The road behind us — How we found the soul — Survival 
a thinkable contingency — A question of physics and 
physiology — The fear of death — The needs of the heart — 
Reward and punishment — A boundless prospect . . 321 

Index 329 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

' PORTRAIT OF "KATIE KING". . . . To face p. 222 

-.A PHOTOGRAPH OF "KATIE KING" . . „ 232 

•MISS FLORENCE COOK IN 1874 ... „ 250 

• A LATER PORTRAIT OF MISS FLORENCE 

COOK (Mrs. Elgib Corner) .... ,,253 



NEW LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY 



PART I 

CHAPTER I 

THE PROBLEM BEFORE US 

The twentieth century is too busy to occupy itself 
much with the problems presented by death and 
what follows it. The man of the world makes his 
will, insures his life, and dismisses his own death 
with the scantiest forms of politeness. The 
churches, once chiefly interested in the ultimate 
fate of the soul after death, now devote the bulk 
of their energies to moral instruction and social 
amelioration. Death is all but dead, as an over- 
shadowing doom and an all-absorbing subject of 
controversy. 

The spectacle of 2,000,000,000 human beings 
rushing to their doom with no definite knowledge 
of what that doom may be, and yet taking life as 
it comes, happily and merrily enough as a rule, 
seems strange and almost unaccountable. The 
spectacle somewhat resembles that inside a prison 

A 



2 THE PROBLEM BEFORE US 

during the Reign of Terror, when prisoners passed 
their time in animated and even gay converse, not 
knowing who would be called out next to be 
trundled to the scaffold. 

Such a spectacle has from time to time appalled 
sensitive hearts, and led them to endeavour to 
impress upon their fellow-creatures the precarious- 
ness of their predicament and the uncertainty of 
their fate. Such admonitions have, however, but a 
temporary effect generally. It is only when death 
approaches the individual himself, or those most 
dear to him, that the Problem confronts him in 
deadly earnest. What are we ? Whence and 
whither ? Here am I yet, a being full of mental 
and physical activities, in full possession of my 
reasoning faculties, with a vast memory and experi- 
ence in the background, capable of understanding 
and influencing my surroundings, filling my place 
to the happiness and advantage of others, indis- 
pensable, perhaps, to their well-being — and yet 
this will all come to an end, a painful and perhaps 
inglorious end, just as it did in that other being 
whose soul was intertwined with mine, whose 
thoughts and very life were mine, and without 
whom I could not conceive of existence as possible ! 

Every year some 40,000,000 human corpses are 
consigned to the earth. A million tons of human 
flesh and blood and bone are discarded as of no 
further service to humanity, to be gradually trans- 



THE COMMON FATE 3 

formed into other substances and perhaps other 
forms of life. Meanwhile the human race in its 
myriad forms lives and thrives. Its aggregate 
weight of 50,000,000 tons shows no sign of dimin- 
ution. No matter if the whole race is renewed 
every fifty years. No matter if the population of 
the Unknown Land increases every year by half the 
population of the United States. The individual 
perishes, the species survives. Death is a natural 
necessity, a matter of exact science and statistics, 
an inexorable doom. The individual terror sinks 
out of sight in the triumph of the aggregate, a 
triumph reflected in the ordinary indifference of 
the individual. " Thy fate is the common fate of 
all." What need to murmur when we all must 
suffer the same fate ? Our ancestors have faced it 
before us without flinching. We have nothing to 
complain of. We are like soldiers on a battlefield, 
with equal chances of being shot. A spirit of com- 
radeship keeps us courageous and resourceful. We 
have spells of panic, but a single bright example of 
bravery suffices to annul it. And so the race lives 
on, surrounded on all sides by deadly peril, and 
manages to smile amid a thousand forms of torture 
and annihilation. 

This magnificent nonchalance in the face of 
death must have some justification. It is incon- 
ceivable that all these millions should be indifferent 
to their future fate. It cannot be the effect of 



4 THE PROBLEM BEFORE US 

religion, since this indifference is found in its most 
pronounced form among the least religious com- 
munities. It can hardly be a growing conviction 
that there is no immortality, that death cancels 
and swallows up everything, for such a feeling could 
not produce a vigorous and cheerful life. Most 
likely it is a half unconscious conviction that some- 
how everything will work out well, that the bright- 
ness and beauty of this world is a promise of more 
joy and delight in other forms of existence, and 
that the Power which gives us even a few glimpses 
of happiness now is the same Power that will rule 
and bless our future life. 

It may be also that the task of probing into the 
future has proved so beset with difficulties, the 
results of research so meagre and disappointing, the 
most eminent opinions so contradictory, that many 
have given up all " idle speculation " in that direc- 
tion, confining themselves to more accessible fields 
of endeavour, exploring the visible universe and 
tracing its laws, or ordering their surroundings and 
material prospects so as to secure the maximum of 
comfort and enjoyment for themselves and those 
whose personalities are linked amicably with their 
own. 

Yet one cannot but imagine that this state of 
things will change. Mankind is so inquisitive, so 
restlessly active in elucidating mysteries and extend- 
ing the realm of certainty, that the land beyond 



THE DEBATABLE LAND 5 

the grave must surely some day be asked to yield 
up its fruits of truth. When we dissect the body 
and probe the human soul to its depths, it surely 
does not mean that bodily comfort and mental 
sanity for threescore years and ten are the highest 
aim of all our work ! No ; our minds will not be 
satisfied with half truths. When we explore any 
new territory, any new portion of the Unknown, we 
are not finally satisfied with contradictions and in- 
comprehensibilities. These only act as irritants and 
stimuli towards further endeavour. They encourage 
younger minds to try and succeed where the first 
pioneers failed. Nothing is so discouraging to a 
young Alexander as the thought that his father has 
left him no worlds to conquer ! Well, here are your 
worlds, young men ! Here is Freedom and Neces- 
sity, Mind and Matter, Moral Kesponsibility, the 
Origin of Evil, Life and Death, and Immortality — 
all subjects full of difficulties and pitfalls, puzzles 
on which the mightiest intellects have in vain plied 
their weapons of analysis. Ye shall succeed where 
your forebears failed. 

Has Science any new light wherewith to illumine 
the Debatable Land ? Have we explored in vain 
the depths of stellar space ? Have we solidified air, 
harnessed the lightning, isolated the bacillus, and 
split the atom without making any real and vital 
advance ? Are we for ever to inscribe on our tomb- 
stones a note of interrogation, and — 



6 THE PROBLEM BEFORE US 

" Speak of death with bated breath, 
And faces blanched with fear " 1 

It has been said that the lives of savages are 
played against a perpetual background of dread, 
that certainty, safety, reasonable security, are the 
highest gifts of civilisation. We may therefore 
expect that efforts will always be made to dispel 
the haunting insecurity of our existence, and to give 
us a firm footing in both worlds — the world we live 
in and the world to come. 

But the difficulties of the task are complicated 
by two diametrically opposite factors. On the one 
hand we have Science, largely materialistic or ag- 
nostic, which either denies point-blank all existence 
after death, or regards its problems as insoluble and 
all attempts in that direction as doomed to failure. 
On the other side stands theology in its many 
forms, armed too often with dogmatic pronounce- 
ments and girt about with a narrow-minded and 
ultra-conservative bigotry which would fain reserve 
the Unknown Land to itself and refuse admission 
to all surveying expeditions. Mankind will refuse 
to be fettered by either of these. No preconceived 
negative theory will prevent a new science being 
born which shall embrace all discoveries on the new 
continent, and that new world will be too closely 
associated with mankind at large and man's departed 
to be willingly handed over to the exclusive use of 
any one theology, however ancient or imposing. 



WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW 7 

We may therefore set to work on this pioneer's 
task, with due care and reverence and circum- 
spection. We want to know what life is, and 
what relation it holds to matter, how it is organised 
and supported, how it thrives and multiplies, decays 
and disappears. We want to know what gives us 
our present bodies, why they develop as they do, 
without our knowing or controlling the process ; why 
we pass through certain stages at certain epochs, 
and subsequently, much against our will, gradually 
withdraw into ourselves and disappear from the 
stage. We want to know what constitutes death, 
what are its essential attributes and conditions, 
what makes it inevitable. We want to know what 
constitutes our individuality and identity, why we 
are we and none else, what hope we have of pre- 
serving this identity. We want to know how it 
feels to die, and what happens to us after we have 
passed the portals of the Unseen. We want to 
know whether we shall live for ever, and if so, 
whether we have lived before, or only begun exist- 
ence when we entered this world. And if we are 
immortal, are horses and dogs immortal, and trees 
and plants, and mushrooms and earwigs, and tubercle 
bacilli ? And if not, is the cleverest dog more 
mortal than the unborn babe or the hopeless idiot 
or the lowest savage ? And if that is so, what is 
it that gives man this tremendous privilege over 
the highest animal intelligence ? 



8 THE PROBLEM BEFORE US 

And then we want to know the function of pain, 
the essence of happiness, the mission of good and 
evil, whether there are eternal rewards and punish- 
ments, and whether our conduct here determines 
our fate hereafter. We want to know if any com- 
munication exists between this world and the next, 
any wireless telegraph joining the two continents, 
any code of signals, any Esperanto for communica- 
tion. We ask whether the dead return, whether 
they appear again to us in this world, and if they 
do, whether such phantoms are real or imaginary. 
We want to know whether communication, or in- 
creased communication, between us and the de- 
parted is likely to benefit either us or them. In 
any case, we want to indicate how, if required, the 
gulf between us can be bridged over, and intelligent 
communication safely established. 

All this is to be done with the aid of an enlarged 
and enlighted Science. The foundations of present- 
day science are not broad enough to reach those 
ethereal heights where the spirits dwell. Like 
Marconi in Connemara, we must build a wider and 
vaster structure on new foundations, a structure of 
superior range and carrying capacity. But in doing 
so, all the latest results and advances of science 
must be brought into play. All the magnificent 
work hitherto accomplished in physics, astronomy, 
chemistry, biology, and experimental psychology 
must be pressed into service. Special attention 



MODERN WEAPONS 9 

must be paid to the more recondite problems of 
mental pathology, and the results of the psychical 
and metapsychical research. Just as physicists and 
chemists use that rare substance, radium, to discover 
new and fundamental laws of matter, so must we 
search among the authentic records of supernormal 
phenomena for new guides and new enlightenments. 
And combining all these materials with the accepted 
and universal canons of logic, applying to them a 
sound and fearless common sense, and clothing them 
in a simple and unambiguous language, we may hope 
to acquit ourselves of our task with some benefit to 
afflicted humanity. 



CHAPTER II 

WHAT IS LIFE? 

Whenever we wish to define or explain a thing, we 
require something else to which, in whole or in part, 
it is equivalent, something to which we can reduce 
it or with which we can compare it. 

Ancient philosophy wisely refrained from a defini- 
tion of life in terms of something else, and dealt by 
preference with the soul, the " formal cause " of the 
organised body, assuming, as a rule, some connection 
with the breath, the steaming blood, the shadow, 
or some other less material and more evanescent 
aspect of the body or its functions. 

Modern science, more discerning and enterprising, 
and less devout, has attempted to define life in 
terms of that conception with which most of its 
researches have hitherto dealt, viz. matter or 
material. 

Thus we find in Baldwin's " Dictionary of Philo- 
sophy and Psychology " the following : — 

" Life : A form of organisation found in certain 
material things, having the properties of self-per- 
petuation, for a longer or shorter time, and of 
reproduction in some form, and further distinguished 



WHAT IS LIFE ? I I 

by certain characters described as vital properties, 
or properties of living matter." 

These characters are usually described as (1) 
nutrition, (2) reproduction, and (3) irritability, but 
later researches have eliminated (1) and (3) from 
the essential characteristics of living matter. Leduc's 
artificial plants, Lehmann's " living crystals," and 
J. Chunder Bose's researches on the irritability of 
metals have pushed back the boundary between the 
living and the non-living until it is hard to say 
where it lies, or whether there is in truth any such 
boundary at all. Growth and assimilation are only 
approximate criteria. " Assimilation enables us to 
recognise life only by means of long-continued 
observation." As regards reproduction, Burke's 
" radiobes " should warn us against any dogmatism 
on this point. Nor does chemistry help us. Le 
Dantec says 1 : " We cannot say by what chemical 
or colloid peculiarity the living being differs from 
its corpse "(p. 29). And again: "We cannot dis- 
tinguish the living whole ' cytoplasm-nucleus ' from 
the dead aggregate corpse of the cytoplasm and 
corpse of the nucleus" (p. 46). 

Life, according to modern biology, is " an aquatic 
phenomenon." It is " a surface accident in the 
history of the thermic evolution of the globe." Life 
is a matter of chemical physics, but " in the present 

1 Le Dantec, " The Nature and Origin of Life." Hodder and 
Stoughton, 1907. 



■— 



I 2 WHAT IS LIFE ? 

state of science, we are able to define exactly 
neither the chemical structure nor the colloidal 
state peculiar to living substances — and yet this, 
doubtless, would be sufficient to characterise life " 
(Le Dantec, p. 45). 

The least material definition is perhaps that which 
defines life as a succession of "functions" or rather 
" functionings," or, more generally, as a continual 
self-adaptation to surroundings. 

A purely mechanical or chemical view would 
reduce life to the configuration and motion of the 
molecules, atoms, or electrons of the substance ap- 
parently endowed with it, such motion taking place 
in strict and rigid conformity with the unchanging 
laws governing the moving forces. This view would 
make every event of life inevitable, predestined, and 
ultimately calculable. 

The " vitalistic " school, on the other hand, recog- 
nises a something apart from matter and motion, 
something not subject to mechanical or chemical 
laws, which yet exerts a determining influence upon 
vital processes. This something may be a" growth 
force " (Cope), a " genetic energy " (Williams), a 
kind of " self-adaptation " (Henslow), or " self-direc- 
tion " (Eimer), or, finally, a directive action of mind 
(Lodge), which is able to direct the flow of energy 
without influencing its amount, and thus remains 
in accord with the doctrine of the conservation of 
energy. 



WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT MATTER? 1 3 

These, then, are the main attempts to explain life 
in terms of something else which is not life. 

Now it is obvious that an explanation is valueless 
unless it reduces something of which we know little 
or nothing to something of which we know more. 
The question then arises as to whether life or matter 
is the more fundamental, familiar, or knowable 
phenomenon. We must, in fact, find out whether 
matter, with or without some semi-material or 
immaterial adjunct, is capable of " explaining " 
life, and of forming a basis for its interpretation 
and control. 



What do we Know About Mattee? 

Matter has acquired a tremendous prestige 
through the development of physical and chemical 
science. Formerly treated with contempt as some- 
thing gross, corrupt, and perishable, it has almost 
become an idol fit to worship. It has at least 
become the substratum of the visible universe, an 
eternal and indestructible substance, capable, by 
the permutations and combinations of its elements 
and particles, of giving rise to all the various forms, 
happenings, and beings which make up our world. 
A great number of rules have been discovered 
which apparently govern the action of one portion 
of matter on another. A vast proportion of such 
interactions have been made amenable to prediction, 



14 WHAT IS LIFE? 

calculation, and control. The more of these rules 
we discover, the greater becomes our interest in, 
and our respect for, the properties and workings 
of this mysterious substance. Our reverence for 
matter has much in common with the ancient 
reverence for a mighty king. We enter his country. 
We find his coinage and his image everywhere, his 
soldiers in their uniforms, his police, his laws, his 
rewards and punishments, his unfailing benevolence 
for the good, his wrath which falls upon the evil-doers, 
his irrevocable sentence, his unfailing mercy and 
charity. Our admiration increases when we find 
his whole people permeated by their ruler's ideas 
and aspirations, devoted to his person, willing to 
give their lives in his service. To these subjects, 
the king personifies all that is permanent, stable, 
mighty, and majestic. They find it easier to 
imagine the end of all things than a change in 
the order of their state. 

Or again we may admire a great empire or 
republic, a great organisation of any kind. We 
may entrust our whole fortune to a bank, believing 
it to be firm as a rock. In short, we find some- 
thing that is firm and sure, a foothold in the swirl 
of phenomena, and straightway we build upon it the 
structures, material or mental, which the human 
mind ever loves to design. 

And so with matter. We find in it something 
that does not shift with our passing whim, or (more 



RECURRENT SENSATIONS I 5 

important still) our neighbour's passing whim. That 
is really all we care about. If I have a watch which 
keeps good time, it matters not to me whether the 
gold or brass of which it is made evolved in past 
ages out of uranium or lead, nor whether there 
is any " ultimate reality " behind that bundle of 
sensations which I remember and combine under 
the label, " my watch." Enough that when I look 
at it I can see the time, that I can feel it in my 
waistcoat pocket, that I can hear it ticking, and that 
I have a reasonable assurance of being able to enjoy 
those three sensations whenever I like. Of course, 
without those three sensations I should have no 
evidence of the existence of my watch, and if I 
cannot obtain such evidence indirectly (through 
somebody else's sense organs) I cannot know whether 
or not it has ceased to exist. And further, if I take 
away all memories of those three sensations, my 
watch will be practically non-existent. As far as I 
am concerned, the world may be full of watches, 
crowded with them indeed, but so long as neither I, 
nor other sentient beings with whom I am in touch, 
can perceive them, or the effects of their presence, I 
am justified in taking their non-existence for granted. 
The same argument applies to all matter. We 
may therefore define matter as that which, when 
brought into a certain relation (distance or prox- 
imity) with us, or with beings similar to ourselves 
excites in us or in them certain sensations. 



1 6 WHAT IS LIFE? 

The proviso " beings similar to ourselves " is 
important. For when we come to think of it, our 
unaided evidence is not conclusive. If I see a 
book lying on a table I can as a rule safely con- 
clude that it is " actually there." But what does 
" actually there " mean ? It cannot mean simply 
that I do see it, for that would be nothing new. It 
must mean (1) that I can " do " things with it, 
and thus derive other groups of sensations from 
its presence ; (2) that other people also could see 
it, and test its presence in the same manner. 

When (1) turns out to be correct, I have reason- 
able grounds for " crediting the evidence of my own 
eyes." But there is still a possibility that I am 
dreaming ! To reassure myself, I call in a friend, 
and if he agrees with my verdict, my conviction 
that I have an "actual thing" to deal with is 
strengthened. To make assurance doubly sure, I 
call in other friends, and if we all have the same 
impression, the " fact " is established. 

Is this, then, the generally accepted and con- 
clusive manner of establishing a fact ? By no 
means. For in the history of the human race it has 
happened over and over again that a fact has been 
implicitly believed and attested by hundreds or 
thousands of people, and yet has been finally dis- 
credited, perhaps even by many of its original 
observers. 

This fate has not only overtaken " facts " which 



OBJECTIVE REALITY I 7 

are essentially theories (like the flatness or im- 
mobility of the earth), but even sensory phenomena 
observed and described by half-a-dozen experts, and 
corroborated by photography. Of this, Blondlot's 
"N-rays" furnish a familiar and instructive 
example. 

We cannot, therefore, arrive at a definition of 
matter from our own observations, or those of our 
neighbours, or from any hypotheses concerning 
" real existence " — a term which in this connection 
would be utterly meaningless. But we can be 
perfectly sure of our own sensations. No matter 
what may be their cause, whether they be brought 
about by " objective reality " or whether they be the 
wild fancies of a fevered brain. So long as they 
last, they are real, and they form the only ultimate 
reality which we can postulate from personal ob- 
servation. " Objective reality " we can only ascribe 
to those things which produce similar sensations 
in organisms similar to our own when similarly 
situated, and " matter " is such an " objective 
reality." 

This, it will be remarked, is rather a flimsy 
substratum on which to build our " material uni- 
verse." So it is ; but it is the only substratum which 
logic and philosophy can afford us. However, for 
practical purposes it is quite sufficient. Suppose, 
for the sake of argument, that by some sudden and 
curious inversion of things our dream Avorld should 



1 8 WHAT IS LIFE? 

become " reality," and our waking world should 
become a dream. Suppose that dream events were 
found to observe certain unalterable rules, different 
perhaps from those of our waking world, but still 
as permanent and as independent of our will as 
they. Supposing such a real dream were continued 
indefinitely. Then by what process could we ever 
be convinced of the " unreality " of our dream ? 
Dream and reality would have simply changed places. 
Like " Alice in Wonderland," we should have to try 
and find out the queer new " laws of nature " of our 
dream world, and make the best of them. 

All we know about matter, therefore, is that it 
produces certain sensations in the vast majority of 
individuals of the human race. Matter is therefore 
by no means a fundamental conception. In this 
respect, it is surpassed by many other conceptions. 
A child gets to know its mother long before it 
arrives at the conception of matter. 

As we depart from the fundamental realities of 
our own sensations, we have to bring into play more 
of our powers of cognition, and less of our perceptive 
faculties. We may give, perhaps, the following list 
of ultimate realities, proceeding from the most fun- 
damental to the less fundamental : — 

(1) Our own sensations. 

(2) The existence of other people. 

(3) The sensations of other people. 

(4) The existence of matter. 



MATTER OF CONVENIENCE 1 9 

The reasoning given above proves, I think, con- 
clusively, that none of these can be regarded as 
existing, unless those preceding it are taken for 
granted. It is apparent at once that, since (1), (2), 
and (3) involve consciousness, and (4) does not, we 
cannot " explain " consciousness in terms of matter. 
We cannot even define it in terms of matter, since 
matter is itself but a fourth-rate abstraction. There 
is, on the other hand, no logical difficulty in reduc- 
ing matter to terms of the first three fundamentals. 
That this has not been done is due to certain prac- 
tical considerations of economy. The word " matter " 
is a convenient abbreviation for a certain tangle of 
sensations and memories of sensations, individual or 
collective. The practical effect upon us of that 
reality which is at the back of matter is not 
changed by (erroneously) regarding matter itself 
as a reality. So long as we remember that matter 
is not a fundamental reality, but an abstraction 
derived from sense experience, there is no harm 
in dealing with it practically as if it had an exist- 
ence independent of ourselves. But the mischief is, 
that we don't remember this when we deal with the 
higher problems of philosophy, and so we get lost 
in a hopeless maze of contradictions. 

It is right for me to remember, that if I wind up 
my watch regularly it will go ; in other words, that 
if I produce in myself certain muscular sensations 
having a certain connection with the sensations of 



20 WHAT IS LIFE? 

touch associated with that abstraction from experi- 
ence called " my watch/' said abstraction will con- 
tinue to develop in the same orderly visual manner 
in which it has hitherto progressed. Practically, 
the first way of expressing this fact is very much 
more convenient than the second way. But philo- 
sophically the second way is more correct, and 
applicable over a much wider range of experience. 
It is, moreover (though one might at first sight 
think otherwise), much freer from risky theorising, 
and, indeed, much more " matter of fact " in the 
true sense. 

This example not only shows what economy the 
conception of " matter " introduces into our modes 
of expression, but also explains why matter should 
gradually have acquired the place and prestige of a 
fundamental reality, if not the fundamental reality. 

Matter in Terms of Life 

In this work, however, we are not engaged in the 
task of stating and cataloguing phenomena in the 
shortest and most concise manner, but in discovering 
the real nature, origin, and destiny of life. For this 
purpose, it is not legitimate to regard life and matter 
as things apart. In order to escape from this ob- 
session of materialism, from this ever-present and 
almost irresistible temptation to regard matter as 
self-existent and independent, we must follow out 



MATTER IN TERMS OF LIFE 21 

our logical course to the end. That logical course 
gives us only one perfect way. We must explain 
matter in terms of life, not only in a general way, but 
down to the most minute particulars. Thus we may 
hope to gain a real advance in knowledge, keeping 
all the while in touch with full and ultimate reality. 

How, then, shall we reduce the phenomena of 
" dead matter " to terms of life ? Obviously, we 
must begin with our own most fundamental realities, 
and gradually venture outside ourselves into the 
open, into that teeming world peopled with intelli- 
gences billionfold, where we delight to recognise 
now and then something akin to ourselves. 

The growth of every infant illustrates this 
fascinating process. The only things present to the 
immature infant mind are sensations, which rapidly 
assume an orderly sequence : hunger, food, satis- 
faction; darkness, sleep; cold, crying, nursing, warmth; 
and so on. Next come more elaborate motor 
activities : visual sensations invariably accompanying 
certain motor impulses, developing gradually into 
voluntary motion. Then the perception of outside 
personalities, originating in similarities of voice, of 
appearance, of motion, until the mother or nurse 
becomes, after self, the most dominant and funda- 
mental reality. Then the perception of things, 
originally regarded also as evidence of personalities, 
but gradually catalogued in a class of sensations 
indirectly subject to will. 



2 2 WHAT IS LIFE ? 

The child stops there. To the child, and to the 
nnphilosophic members of the human race, material 
things are ultimate realities, while they last, at all 
events. But by-and-by, when the thinking faculties 
are developed, the mind probes deeper. The things 
are taken to pieces and are reduced to combinations 
of parts. Forms are distinguished, and when two 
things still differ, though having the same form, the 
conception of material is arrived at. The infinite 
variety of materials is reduced by analysing them 
into their elements, and recombining these in 
various ways. The behaviour of the elements is 
studied, and rules are found which denote their 
" properties " and the properties of their com- 
binations. The human mind is thus ceaselessly 
active in adapting its environment to its own needs. 
For all this analysis and recombination has that 
one single object — betterment. We seek for new 
combinations of parts, of forms, of materials, of 
elements in order to find combinations which suit us 
better. The child, in grasping a toy, does what we 
all do in more elaborate ways. It has learnt the 
centripetal law of appropriation, and has known the 
delights of ownership. We look for laws of wider 
sweep and more universal sway. The child learns 
the rules of the nursery. We search out the laws 
of nature. 

These " laws of nature," whence are they ? Why 
do elements have certain properties, and their com- 



STRATA OF LIFE 23 

binations new properties ? Proceeding, as before, 
from the known to the unknown, we begin with 
the " properties " we observe in ourselves, with the 
qualities of our fellow-men, the dispositions of 
animals, the behaviour or activity of minute organ- 
isms. Nothing very mysterious there ! The farther 
down we go, the less familiar does the life of the 
other organisms become. But whose fault is that ? 
Are we to suppose that we alone have a fully con- 
scious life, simply because our own kind of life is 
the only one we can fully grasp and comprehend ? 
Take a lump of chalk and a lump of yeast. The 
one contains millions of minute shells which once 
were the homes of living and intensely active beings. 
The other contains millions of beings living even noiv. 
Who would suppose it ! Who even suspected it 
fifty years ago ! The air, the water, and the ground 
simply swarm with life, with minute invisible organ- 
isms which are capable of living for months or years 
within larger beings, or hibernating in cold and 
drought till they find a more agreeable season. 
And why draw the line there ! Who knows but 
that some future biologist, armed with optical instru- 
ments a thousand times more powerful than ours, 
may discover evidences of " life " in the very mole- 
cules and atoms of matter ? Even if these consist 
of aggregations of hard geometrical solids, they may, 
as I have shown in " Two New Worlds," be the 
homes of untold numbers of infra-beings whose 



24 WHAT IS LIFE? 

lives, being reduced in the same proportion in time 
and space, are probably not very widely different 
from our own. Is it not, then, natural and reason- 
able to assume that it is life, and not dead matter 
or blind force, which rules the properties and events 
of the " material " world ? 

Let us assume, at one bound, that the " laws of 
nature" are in reality the rules of conduct and 
interaction and co-operation of countless, living 
beings of all grades, and see whether we cannot 
found a new and truer and profounder philosophy 
upon that hypothesis. 

That a mass of individuals may develop certain 
uniform qualities resembling physical or chemical 
properties will, I think, be readily granted. A 
human crowd has been likened to a viscous liquid, 
which acquires a certain speed under the impulse 
of a certain propelling or attracting force, which 
streams most rapidly in the middle of the street, 
and offers a certain constant resistance which prevents 
its speed exceeding a certain maximum. An army 
of 100,000 men is dealt with as a compound con- 
taining a certain proportion or officers and men, and 
might be represented by a chemical formula such 
as ON 3 M go , when O stands for officers, N for non- 
commissioned officers, and M for men. A shoal of 
herrings, a swarm of locusts, a herd of sheep, are 
masses having a certain consistency, speed, impetus, 
and inertia, which would appear to us as such if our 



LIFE IN THE MASS 25 

bodies, instead of being what they are, were magni- 
fied to the size of the earth. The smaller the 
individuals, the less able are we to detect individual 
differences. A lump of yeast appears to us no more 
alive than a lump of putty. Yet yeast consists of 
countless small and simple cells, a thousand million 
of them to the cubic inch. Could we, by a suitable 
reduction in size, lump the whole human race 
together in the space of a cubic inch, we should 
get something greatly resembling that shapeless 
lump of yeast. We should be able to determine 
its physical and chemical properties, its absorption 
of oxygen and evolution of carbonic acid, the decom- 
position of its food-stuffs, accompanied by a certain 
development of heat and energy. 

We cannot logically deny to the atom what we 
are already bound to concede to a particle of matter 
little larger than a molecule. It is true that the 
more minute the particle the less does any conceiv- 
able consciousness we may attribute to it resemble 
our own consciousness. But that is simply due to 
our own limitations. We know that atoms take an 
intense part in all the physical happenings of the 
universe. Every beam of light, every electro-mag- 
netic wave out of the myriads of waves crossing 
and recrossing every part of the universe brings 
some change, temporary or permanent, into the 
most intimate structure of the atom. It awakens 
some " response," some adaptation perhaps. The dis- 



26 WHAT IS LIFE ? 

covery of radio-activity has even strongly suggested 
the idea that the " life period " of all atoms is 
limited ; that they evolve and devolve ; that ura- 
nium or actinium is the " parent " of radium ; that 
helium atoms are the offspring, spores, or buds of 
the atoms of radium or of the atoms of substances 
evolved from radium The smaller the scale and 
the vaster the number of individuals we have to 
survey the more " mechanical " or purely physical 
do their qualities or properties become. And so is 
eventually born the idea of " dead matter " — dead 
to us because its life is inaccessible and unintel- 
ligible to us, because we have no language under- 
stood in those remote regions, no key nor code 
of signals by which to communicate with their 
inhabitants. 

Yet we cannot doubt that those regions of life on 
the borderland have traditions and laws of their 
own. Every hydrogen atom is a small society held 
together by its own social laws, which make for its 
safety and stability, and do actually preserve it from 
disintegration for very long periods of time. This 
social system has become stereotyped among all 
hydrogen atoms, just as the shape of a man or 
a horse has become stereotyped. Whether hydrogen 
atoms reproduce their own kind we cannot say. If 
we had nothing but a lump of yeast and no micro- 
scope, we could not possibly say whether yeast cells 
reproduced their kind or not. The process would 



SOCIAL LIFE OF ATOMS 27 

be lost in the average. If the life of the " adult " 
hydrogen atom were a million times as long as its 
" childhood " there would not at any time be more 
than one " young " hydrogen atom in a million. It 
would be lost in the crowd, and we should declare 
birth and growth to be absent among hydrogen 
atoms. 

We see, then, that mechanical, physical, and 
chemical properties may quite conceivably originate 
in social systems obeying laws which we could de- 
scribe as social, moral, or intellectual laws. We, in 
our turn, utilise the uniformities so established to 
further our own purposes. We observe those laws, 
study them, make them part of ourselves, and so 
proceed to rule and control matter. We " stoop to 
conquer." 

It matters little to us why hydrogen, oxygen, or 
iron atoms have certain properties so long as those 
properties suit our purposes and can be relied upon. 
If these atoms are living beings it is no concern of 
ours. All we ask of them is that they shall perform 
certain functions in the place which we assign to 
them, like a horse harnessed to a cart, or a pack 
of hounds brought out to a hunt. The " life " of 
atoms is not perceptibly affected by what we do 
with them. They may pass through the most 
passionate convulsions of feeling without our being 
able to influence them, or even to detect any such 
crises. Similarly, the human soul may pass through 



2 8 WHAT IS LIFE? 

the most violent crisis without perceptibly affecting 
the shape and general mechanical properties of the 
body, and, for aught we know, some beings on a 
larger scale than ourselves may be at the present 
moment utilising the average mechanical properties 
of the human race without our being aware of it. 
Even if we were, the individual effects upon ourselves 
might be much less formidable than, say, the effect 
of the weather, and we might be quite willing to 
agree to such a utilisation. These considerations 
suggest the following set of new definitions which 
shall form the basis of our researches into the possi- 
bilities and nature of immortality : — 

1. Life is the interaction between living beings. 

2. Matter is the aggregate of living beings 
belonging to universes inferior to our own. 

3. The laws of nature are the social laws of the 
inferior universes. 

No. 1 may be criticised as being in effect a 
tautology. That is so, but it is inevitable. It 
simply illustrates the fact that life is a funda- 
mental thing incapable of being reduced to any- 
thing more fundamental. 

As regards No. 2, the word "inferior" does not 
imply moral or intellectual inferiority, but simply 
dimensional inferiority. An " inferior world " 
is a world whose atoms (indivisible or prac- 
tically undivided) are of a smaller order of 
magnitude than those of our own universe. The 



NEW FOUNDATIONS 29 

"infra-world" is the universe next below ours in 
this series. The order of living beings with which 
we may " interact " is not stated in the above defi- 
nition. In fact, the order varies. When we com- 
municate with beings of our own order, we live 
socially in our own universe. When we do 
mechanical work, we utilise the social order of the 
infra-world to improve our position in our own. 
When we do physiological work, as in eating or 
drinking, we utilise the social laws of the infra- 
world to improve the social mechanism of that 
part of the infra-world appropriated to our private 
use, viz. our body. We build our earthly dwelling- 
place not on the ruins of other worlds, but on their 
triumphs and their permanences. 



CHAPTER III 

THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

Every child born into this world is in a sense an 
angelos, a messenger. It is as if each of us were 
sent forth, with a definite charge and purpose, with 
instructions to proceed along a certain path and 
take a certain course of action. Whatever may 
be the difficulties in the way, the task will be 
attempted, or the faithful messenger will die in 
the attempt. With an astonishing punctuality and 
conscientiousness certain parts of the appointed 
work will be carried out at the time prearranged. 
Nor will the work be done unwillingly or grudg- 
ingly. On the contrary, its performance will be 
accompanied by the keenest joy, its omission with 
poignant regret. Of all the impulses which control 
human action, the impulse to carry out the pre- 
destined task is the most powerful. When it is 
accomplished, the messenger takes his leisure, 
lingering by the way and pursuing those objects 
which seem most desirable to his own more 
characteristic and original fancy. After some 
further interval, the messenger voluntarily dis- 
appears from the scene of his earthly activities, 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 3 1 

bringing them to a close within a certain maximum 
time limit which is seldom exceeded. 

What is this life-work which is carried out with 
such astonishing devotion ? 

It is what is usually called the physical life of 
the organism. It is a form of life full of the 
most intense and varied activity, a " strenuous life " 
more worthy of the name than the business life of 
the busiest statesman or financier. Consider for a 
moment the work that has to be carried out by 
every human being from his earliest inception until 
maturity. An invisibly small germ cell, itself con- 
sisting of a thousand million complex molecules, 
has to be gradually subdivided and further divided 
until it produces an aggregate of 20,000 billion 
cells, each not only fulfilling its appropriate function 
in the organism, but ready to take a certain line 
of development consistent with the predestined 
development of the organism as a whole. 

These cells have to be developed by segmentation 
according to well-defined laws. Their materials have 
to be laboriously collected, sifted, moulded, and put 
in their proper places. The power necessary for 
the cell functions has to be got in from outside. 
For this purpose fuel has to be imported, burnt in 
a special place, and its energy transported into the 
most outlying regions. Waste materials must be 
removed and replaced, and the introduction of 
noxious matter guarded against. Damage must 



32 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

be repaired, and tatigue must be followed by rest. 
All this vast activity must be carried on syste- 
matically and ceaselessly, and with, scrupulous regard 
to the laws governing the materials worked upon. 

This marvellous process goes on every day before 
our eyes, though, like every process to which we 
are accustomed, it does not strike us as marvellous. 
It is not the unexplained, but the exceptional and 
unusual, that strikes us with wonder. 

As a result of nine months of such intense 
activity, the newly born human babe finds itself 
provided with a complete digestive, circulatory, 
respiratory, and locomotor apparatus with which 
it can face the task of adapting itself to its proper 
functions in the world. The apparatus is there. 
It must now be developed in detail, adapted to 
its special circumstances, and prepared for its 
special destiny. 

The physiological work before the baby between 
birth and maturity is not as formidable as that 
which it has already accomplished. The rate of 
creation of new structures and tissues is retarded. 
Development takes place along lines already marked 
out. It is a period of growth rather than creation. 
The apparatus already fashioned is exercised and 
strengthened. The skater, having found his feet, 
now endeavours to acquire security, speed, elegance, 
and special accomplishments. The bicyclist, having 
acquired his machine and found his balance, 



MASTERING THE MECHANISM 33 

proceeds to familiarise himself with the various 
peculiarities of the sport, and tests and develops 
his newly acquired powers. 

So the infant waves his arms and tramples his 
legs, fills his lungs and delights his own ears with 
the trumpet sounds of his own voice. Having 
found everything sound and in good order and 
repair, he proceeds farther on his appointed road, 
and enters into communication with surrounding 
beings of his own species. These are at first 
nothing but sources of warmth or food supplies, 
and barely distinguished from their inanimate 
surroundings. But it gradually dawns upon the 
consciousness of His Infantine Highness that there 
is some purpose and intention, some gleam of 
intelligence in the multicoloured objects he so 
often perceives before him. They respond to his 
needs, to his will. They emit sounds not quite 
unlike those he is himself capable of producing. 
He imitates them, and gradually finds that certain 
agreeable processes follow the emission of parti- 
cular sounds, and that these processes undergo a 
certain regular variation on varying the sounds 
in a special manner. And so he acquires the gift 
of language. 

Up to this, his experience has been entirely 
personal. There was nobody to tell him how to 
accomplish the arduous task of building up a vastly 
complicated organism. It had to be accomplished 

c 



34 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

entirely by his own organic intelligence, aided by 
the prenatal impulse which sent hirn forth as an 
angelos into this world. The acquisition of language 
places him in touch with the accumulated experience 
of humanity, and gives him an enlarged sensorium, 
a wider personality. He begins to see with the 
X eyes of others, and hears with their ears. This 
new power exerts upon the infant an extraordinary 
and far-reaching effect. Henceforth, his own ex- 
periences are registered by the stereotyped formulae 
of language. What they lose in personal vividness 
they gain in generality and in permanence. They 
now become, potentially or actually, part of the 
sum of general human consciousness. As such, 
they acquire a certain dignity and value. They 
are like the acknowledged wit, more appreciated 
because generally accepted and recognised. 

These elements of memory, clothed and embodied 
in words, repeated from mouth to mouth, and 
recalled again and again, form themselves into a 
new and special kind of consciousness, a conscious- 
ness which, from its greater stability (due to its 
wider human basis), is invested with a special 
importance, just as a casual phrase becomes more 
imposing by being engrossed on vellum and framed. 
Gradually this new consciousness is associated 
with all the normal social activity of the child. 
It becomes essentially the social consciousness. But 
being in close relation with (and largely governed 



GRADES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 3 5 

by) the consciousness of others, and thus clearly 
distinguished from the incoherent and irresponsible 
consciousness of dreams, it becomes colloquially 
known as the " waking consciousness " or the con- 
sciousness proper. 

Then what becomes of the " organic intelligence," 
that wonderful master-builder which built up the 
complex machinery of the human organism out of 
the miscellaneous materials supplied to it ? 

It shares the fate of all forms of consciousness 
which become superfluous or habitual. It sinks 
"below the threshold." In the same measure as 
an act becomes habitual, so does it become less | 
conscious. The memory is still there, and so is the 
power to utilise the memory. But not requiring a 
new effort of will, a new application of attention, it 
ceases to emerge into the open. 

A budding pianist will expend a great deal of 
conscious effort on the task of placing the fingers 
correctly on the keys, on giving the proper touch, 
on keeping the prescribed time. The accomplished 
player will perform a hundred separate musical 
actions every second with barely a trace of conscious 
effort. Reverse the succession of the keys from 
right to left, and the most brilliant pianist will have 
to begin his training all over again. 

In games played with a ball this development is 
equally marked. After a little training, the various 
actions and attitudes become " instinctive," as much 



3 6 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

so almost as the instinct which makes the lungs 
breathe and the heart beat. 

Still, most pianists recall their early struggles 
with the stubborn keys. The process of learning 
has remained potentially a part of the waking con- 
sciousness. But we do not remember having learnt 
to walk or to speak, not to mention breathing or 
taking food. This, however, does not necessarily 
mean that these processes never were conscious. 
It simply means that they never were part of our 
social consciousness, i.e. that our experiences at that 
time were never clothed in words, never embodied 
in the audible material of the aggregate human 
consciousness. That we cannot recall our early 
efforts of organic body-building does not prove that 
those efforts were not supremely conscious. Our 
waking consciousness is continually losing material 
which is found to be useless or detrimental to the 
normal business of life. How much more will this 
apply to the organic prelingual consciousness ! 

That the organic consciousness, however, retains 
its activity is made evident by the continued de- 
velopment of the body. It grows in all its parts, 
and its organic development goes hand in hand 
with the development of the social consciousness. 
The earlier years of boyhood and girlhood are 
characterised by a very intense activity in the social 
consciousness. The restless questionings of child- 
hood, its remarkable mental acquisitiveness, offer 



THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 37 

some sort of parallel to the intense physiological 
activity of embryonic life. And in fact the social 
consciousness is building up a complete set of 
mental organs, emotional, intellectual, and voli- 
tional, ready for the next great stage in the journey 
of life. 

The transition to maturity is man's birth into the 
social world, just as his physical birth is his emer- 
gence into a separate physical existence. In both 
cases, organs recently acquired and developed are 
tested and exercised. In the young man we find 
the awakening of ambition and enterprise, associated 
often with a wide sympathy, a valiant optimism and 
idealism, a tendency towards self-sacrifice for the 
benefit of a community. In the young woman we 
have a greater development of the social instincts 
and affections, a desire for a deeper spiritual life, a 
readiness for self-surrender awaiting the appropriate 
stimulus. The wide range and fulness of this period 
of life is attributable to the fact that both the 
organic consciousness and the social consciousness 
are supremely active, the former in adapting the 
organism to its wider social purposes and possi- 
bilities, the latter exercising the newly acquired 
mental organs of social life, and feeling its way 
vaguely towards a personal character and individual 
consciousness. 

That this change towards maturity occurs with 
very tolerable precision about the fourteenth year 



38 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

is another proof that the organic consciousness 
neither sleeps nor slumbers. It is another evidence 
of the faithfulness with which the angelos goes 
through the predetermined stages of his journey. 
It is absolutely no explanation of this almost 
miraculous coincidence to speak of " hereditary 
tendencies " or of " instinct." Things cannot be 
explained by simply giving a name to them. Much 
less is it an explanation to speak of the chemical 
properties and necessities of a given aggregation of 
cells. Every one knows that chemical equilibrium 
is timeless. Every chemical or physical change can 
be accelerated or retarded at will by a suitable 
variation of the supply of energy. These funda- 
mental vital changes are quite independent of 
the supply of energy. They will take place at 
substantially the same age in various climates 
on different diets, and under widely diver- 
gent standards of living. " Their parallel is not 
found in chemical reactions, but in psychical phe- 
nomena like hypnotic suggestion, or in the familiar 
experiment of determining to wake up at a certain 
time. That this time is hit upon almost to the 
minute in eight cases out of ten (a very common 
experience) cannot possibly be explained without 
having recourse to a faculty of the organic con- 
sciousness which is capable of exactly appreciating 
time, and recent experiments in post-hypnotic 
suggestion have proved that this unconscious 



EXTENSION OF PERSONALITY 39 

measurement of time is exceedingly accurate and 
apparently endowed with powers of minute calcu- 
lation. 1 

The social or " waking " consciousness meanwhile 
prepares to tackle the problems of life, to increase 
the sum of human experience, and to enlarge the 
resources of the race. The " business of life " 
acquires more of its ordinary acceptation. The 
civilised man enters upon a complex inheritance 
conveyed to him chiefly through the medium of 
written and spoken language. The wealth of this 
inheritance fully compensates him for the loss of 
direct organic consciousness ; for the organic con- 
sciousness, however resourceful and successful, has 
limits of its own. These limits can only be trans- 
gressed by bringing into action the higher social 
consciousness acquired by the human race in its 
ceaseless battle with nature. This higher con- 
sciousness nowadays implies an enormous extension 
of most of the elementary faculties and powers 
developed by the organic consciousness. Man 
takes up the sense organs as provided by " nature " 
(his own organic consciousness), and develops them 
a thousandfold. The limit of vision is pushed back 
into the remote regions of space. Things that are 
far are brought near. Small things are made large. 
The apparently simple and structureless turns out 

1 See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Oct 
1907. 



40 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

to be a maze of delicate organisation. Invisible 
radiations are discovered. Light, visible and in- 
visible, is made to record its own structure, and 
intimate secrets of matter are brought to light by 
the analysis of its vibrations. 

Hearing is extended over hundreds of miles, and 
fugitive sounds are fixed in waxy substances ready 
for repetition as required. Analysis by smell and 
taste is replaced by the most delicate and diverse 
chemical reactions. 

But it is the sense of touch, and more especially 
muscular action, that experiences the most astound- 
ing extension. Every tool, instrument, or weapon is 
a development and extension of the corresponding 
organ, and more especially of the hand. Man is 
hundred-eyed and hundred-handed. A knife is a 
detachable modified finger-nail or tooth of superior 
power. A stone or bullet or hammer is a detached 
fist of superior impact and penetration. A pump 
is but the hollow hand prolonged and amplified. 
Cloths are modified and removable skin and hair. 
Man's personality does not end at the limits of his 
body. Whole portions of matter outside him 
belong to it. Whatever man controls is part of 
his personality. What a community controls is 
part of the larger " personality " of the community. 
In establishing himself in the world, man aims 
at enlarging his personality and safeguarding it. 
He builds himself a house to safeguard his food- 



CIVILISATION 4 l 

supplies and economise their consumption, but more 
especially in order to simplify his organic life. As 
his waking or social consciousness requires a larger 
sway, so the organic consciousness tends to sink 
farther and farther below the threshold. Man 
brings the accumulated experience of his race to 
bear upon the problems of his food-supply, his 
safety, his comfort. Civilisation means the simpli- 
fication of life, the more direct sway of the con- 
scious will. Civilisation tends to make the supply 
of man's organic needs automatic, in order to give 
freer play to his higher social talents. In this 
respect it simply carries the process of human 
growth a stage farther than " nature " carries it. 

Health, wealth, and wisdom are considered the 
three greatest gifts of this world. Health is the 
equilibrium of the organic life, the adequate re- 
sponse of physical circumstance to predetermined 
development, the successful carrying out of the pre- 
natal commission. Wealth is the successful ex- 
tension of the human personality over a wide range, 
the freer play of the will, the greater command 
over matter, the enhanced power of resistance to 
unfavourable circumstance. Wisdom is the health 
of the social consciousness, the capacity of design 
and initiative in the social and material world, the 
clearness of mental vision. 

The business of life is to secure these for ourselves 
and for our larger selves. For the "self" of the 



42 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

socially normal man is not limited to his own body 
or wealth. It is a varying entity, extending over 
other persons " near and dear " to him, acquiring 
perhaps a wider range, possibly co-extensive with 
his race or state or nation. "Unselfish devotion" is 
really a devotion to a wider self. Selfishness in the 
wider sense is not only a vital necessity ; it is a 
virtue. When any one's feelings are so engaged in 
another person's welfare and happiness that an in- 
jury to the latter is felt as a pain in the former, a 
tendency to guard against that injury is " selfish " 
as regards the combined self of the two, and " un- 
selfish " as regards the first-named individual. This 
is a simple and somewhat obvious solution of the 
old problem as to the possibility of " unselfish- 
ness." 

Consider the working day of a business man, and 
translate his successive activities into more philo- 
sophic language. 

Wash and Dress. — He ensures the frontiers of his 
physical organism against intrusions of extraneous 
matter, whether organic or inorganic. He protects 
those same frontiers from such intrusion or other 
damage by surrounding them with a modified skin 
constructed with special regard to possible adverse 
contingencies. 

Breakfast. — He stores up within his organism 
certain kinds of organised matter from which his 
organic consciousness is able, with the aid of ex- 



A DAYS WORK 43 

perience (inherited or acquired) to derive energy and 
to replace waste material. 

Business. — He endeavours to benefit other people, 
so that in turn they may benefit him. He acquires 
money, i.e. a universally recognised certificate of 
benefit rendered, which he in turn is empowered to 
transfer in recognition of some benefit received. 
He endeavours to put himself in such a position 
that he may confer benefits rapidly and more or 
less unconsciously, so as to acquire the largest 
possible number of " certificates " with the least 
expenditure of energy. 

Family Life. — He cultivates the larger con- 
sciousness which extends over all the individuals 
in his household, endeavouring to harmonise its 
development with the dictates of his own wisdom, 
or enjoying the free exchange of mental life and 
the growth of the aggregate self of the family. 

Social Life. — In the social sphere, the family life 
becomes more or less " subliminal " or unconscious. 
The man feels with the larger self of the society he 
frequents. If ambitious, he seeks to embody the 
will, rather than the emotion, of this larger social 
self. 

Politics. — His " self " now extends all over his 
country. He becomes a unit, a cell, in a higher 
organism, and, according to his talents, becomes part 
of its system, whether its digestive department 
(industry), its circulation (commerce), its respiration 



44 THE BUSINESS OE LIFE 

(post, railways, &c), its nervous system (press), its 
musculature (armed forces, police), or its bones (law). 
If he has special qualities or qualifications, he may 
aspire to become a brain cell, and govern the country 
through laws, emotions, or ideas. 

Sleep. — In sleep, our busy man returns to his 
prenatal state, in which his organic consciousness, 
awake as ever, repairs the machinery it designed 
before birth and never ceased to construct or re- 
construct every night since. 

The enjoyment of life consists chiefly in the 
exercise of faculties newly acquired or too little 
used. These faculties may be physical (i.e. acquired 
and controlled by the organic consciousness), or 
social (acquired and controlled by the waking con- 
sciousness), or a combination of both, which gives 
the greatest enjoyment of all. Our dearest dreams 
of happiness are those of a position in which we 
can exercise a number of untried faculties, be the 
recipients of great benefits and the source of the 
same to others. Such is the healthy child's dream 
of bliss. If the present outlook is gloomy, if the 
faculties are overtaxed, the body and mind over- 
burdened, our dream of happiness is more negative, 
more concerned with rest and peace. 

The happy life is that in which power is neither 
overstrained nor left unemployed, a harmonious and 
progressive development and exercise of all the 
faculties. From day to day we are engaged in three 



HAPPINESS 4 5 

different kinds of activities : constructing, exercising, 
and using the materials of life. From the date of 
our conception, from the very origin of our mundane 
existence, we are fashioning apparatus and ma- 
chinery wherewith to carry on the operations of life. 
This apparatus may consist of bodily organs, of 
language and book-learning, or of connections with 
larger centres of social life. In each case we first 
acquire or construct the apparatus. In the next 
stage we exercise it — a most delightful and more 
especially youthful experience, but open to the adult 
also who gets a new motor-car or comes into some 
property, &c. In the third stage we use the 
apparatus, information, or connection unconsciously, 
as when we walk and eat, or speak our mother 
tongue, or exchange hospitalities. The degree of un- 
consciousness with which the complicated machinery 
of life is manipulated is a rough and ready gauge 
of what is called " social status." The upper classes 
are those who can let the more commonplace de- 
tails of life sink below their level of consciousness. 
But essentially one can hardly speak of " higher " or 
" lower " activity. In many respects the " organic 
consciousness" is far superior to the waking conscious- 
ness in its resources and attainments. The structure 
of the humblest moss is a permanent reminder of this 
significant fact. And whether we are organising a 
baby body or a joint-stock company, our activity is 
essentially the same. It is the constructive stage 



46 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

and element of life in general. The difference lies in 
the kind of material we handle. In one case we have 
supplies of colloid aggregates of molecules of different 
complexities to organise in the way of cells ; in the 
other case we have to weld a number of associations 
of human proprietors into a larger organic unit. One 
man gives an army the order to " march." Another 
whistles to his dog. A third takes up his pen and 
writes. In each case an action is performed in 
order to produce a certain effect, with a reasonable 
certainty that such an effect will ensue to the in- 
dividuals concerned. The importance of the action 
may vary greatly. None of the three know what 
ultimate effects may follow upon their action, and 
its effect upon themselves may vary within an in- 
definitely wide range. 

The activity of any single individual at any 
instant of his life is immense. It includes, of 
course, all his unconscious organic activity. It is 
sleepless and ceaseless. When we, with our im- 
perfect standards of activit}^, speak of a man being 
reduced to inactivity by disease, we commit a gross 
blunder. The disease itself is probably a gigantic 
effort of the organic consciousness to throw off 
some malign influence. 

That a man can effectually superintend the work- 
ins: of several thousand billion cells seems incredible. 
But then we must remember that by " a man " 
we do not mean a being whose only conscious- 



THE REAL MAN 47 

ness is the little flicker of " waking " consciousness, 
itself comprising at any moment but an insignifi- 
cant fraction of his total waking memory, but a 
being with a consciousness extending and working 
over the whole range of his personality, whether 
" instinctively " or deliberately. That being does 
not, like the former, go out of existence every 
time he goes to sleep, but simply turns his atten- 
tion to vital processes founded at a time of life 
when he could not speak, and before words or 
other social symbols could be used to bring these 
processes within the purview of the ordinary 
waking (or social) memory. This is the real 
man, a being endowed with a stupendous memory 
and activity, and with almost unlimited command 
over vital and even physical processes, a man such 
as only rare illumined geniuses are ever aware of 
being, but which we all arc, though we know it not. 
The normal life of man, or of any species of 
plant or animal, is like a practicable road made by 
long centuries of ancestral pioneering. This road 
has been constructed by those who went before us, 
and is kept in repair and improved perhaps by the 
efforts of our contemporaries. A current of life 
wells up constantly from the immeasurable sea of 
existence, and pours into the accustomed channels. 
Every minute of our lives some new human being 
commences the journey of life, treads the well- 
worn road, and follows in the footprints of his 



48 THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

ancestors. Some find out new paths for them- 
selves, but such pioneering work is difficult and 
dangerous, and often leads to disaster. Such 
failures tend to preserve the uniformity of the 
species. Youth is not original, but imitative. 
Originality is mostly confined to the intellectual 
sphere, or to the higher social consciousness, and 
this only develops later in life, when the organic 
consciousness, having done its constructive work, 
falls more and more into a subordinate position. 

From the cradle to the grave, life is a perpetual 
expansion of consciousness. In early youth we 
test and enlarge our physical powers, and lay the 
foundations of our mental equipment. 1 Later on 
we develop our social gifts and memories. In the 
last stages of life, the normal tendency is towards 
" wisdom," a translation of our whole experience 
into the language of our social or waking conscious- 
ness, its formulation in terms of the common 
language which embodies the thoughts of the 
social Avorld about us. 

And then, in due time (and sometimes earlier) 
comes death. That stream of molecules which we 
call the body runs dry. The instrument which 
has placed us in contact with the visible universe 

1 This distinction between "physical" and "mental" is con- 
venient, but it must not blind us to the fact that all powers are 
mental in the wider sense, i.e. parts of our full (organic and 
social) consciousness. 



THE QUESTION 49 

withers away. The perpetual process of renewal 
and repair slackens and finally ceases. The clock- 
work, no longer wound up from day to day, runs 
down and stops. The ancestral road ends on the 
seashore. What then ? 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

" The study of life belongs to chemical physics." — Le Dantec. 

Oue conclusion (p. 28) that life is an interaction 
between living beings, carried on mainly by utilising 
the social laws of an inferior universe (which social 
laws we call " the laws of nature ") enables us to go 
all the way with those biologists who wish to reduce 
the mechanism of life to physics and chemistry. It 
is by these sciences that we carry out all material 
improvements in our surroundings, and it is by 
physics and chemistry, by our organic familiarity 
with their laws, that we construct the physical 
basis of our lives. From our earliest independent 
existence onwards we utilise the laws of nature as 
we find them for the purpose of building up our 
bodies. 

These bodies are, however, highly differentiated 
structures, adapted to the pursuit of a number of 
special activities. The human skeleton is a system 
of struts and levers designed to give rigidity, strength, 
and mobility to the body. The tendons and muscles 
are structures which store the necessary energy for 
the various movements in a form in which it can be 

So 



THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 5 1 

made instantly available on receipt of a signal from 
the controlling centre. These signals are trans- 
mitted by a system of lines called nerves, whose 
structure and functions closely resemble a tele- 
graphic network of great complexity. In this 
manner the fundamental necessity of motion is 
provided for. But Ave require much more than 
that. We want not only an organism capable of 
moving in a desired direction or producing motion 
in other objects — we must be kept constantly 
informed of the state of our surroundings, in order 
to determine what kind of motion will be most 
advantageous to us. We require a delicate instru- 
ment for detecting the emanations of surrounding 
objects. We require another for analysing the 
waves of elastic displacement which impinge upon 
us, and yet another for analysing the waves of 
electro-magnetic energy which pervade the space 
around. And so we provide ourselves with a nose 
and ears and eyes. 

Nor is this enough. The energy accumulated in 
the substance of our muscles is not unlimited. It 
requires renewal. If we were plants, we might 
take the necessary energy direct from the sunlight. 
But that source is too precarious for practical pur- 
poses, and it is much simpler, as well as more 
certain and more economical, to take the energy 
from lower organisms, plants by preference, which 
spend most of their time collecting it for us. All 



52 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

we have to do is to provide ourselves with a port- 
able laboratory where the energy accumulated by 
plants or by inferior animals may be converted into 
a form suitable for our own mechanism. Hence 
our digestive system. The finished product of that 
digestive laboratory must then be taken to the 
very doors of all our subordinate mechanicians, 
and the waste products must be removed. This 
necessitates a heart and a circulation of the blood. 
That portion of the produce of the digestive labo- 
ratory which is to serve as fuel must be exposed to 
a slow combustion and supplied with a constantly 
renewed quantity of air. Hence our lungs and 
respiration. And finally, all this elaborate machinery 
must be closed in, to guard it against hostile in- 
fluences and give it consistency. Sentinels must 
be placed at the outposts to warn us of the 
state of our immediate surroundings, and specially 
delicate or sensitive districts must be specially 
protected. Hence our skin, and hair, and sense 
of touch. 

And so we get that miracle of mechanism, the 
human body, controlled by a central exchange to 
which all the wires converge, the brain. And 
within that brain, invisible to all prying eyes, sits 
Ego, the self, receiving every second a thousand 
million messages, answering them with an astonish- 
ing industry and despatch, and getting through an 
amount of business which might well be the envy 



OUR ORGANISATION 53 

and despair of the most strenuous New York 
business house. 

The manifold calls which may be made upon 
every part of the organism necessitate a localised 
adaptation which expresses itself in a certain amount 
of decentralisation. The whole body is divided into 
minute districts, each of which is divided off from 
the rest and leads, to some extent, an independent 
life, looking to its own growth and food-supply, and 
fitting itself for its special function in the life of the 
whole. These districts are called "cells," and the adult 
human body contains some 25,000,000,000,000,000 
of them. So small are they that twenty of them 
are contained in the thickness of a finger-nail. And 
yet each cell is itself a mechanism consisting of 
much more minute parts. If Ave go right down to 
the atoms, we find that the smallest living cell 
contains over 100,000,000 of them. But these 
are not distributed at random through the cell, 
but built up into structures of great complexity, 
structures which have a " colloid " or gummy con- 
sistency, and are supposed to be made up of com- 
plex but more or less regularly constituted chemical 
molecules. The human body has therefore aptly 
been called " a mechanism of mechanisms of mech- 
anisms " ; in other words, a mechanism of cells, 
which are mechanisms of colloid bodies, which 
again are mechanisms of complex molecules. 

Imagine, then, for a moment what it means to be 



54 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

in actual effective possession of such a marvellously 
complex instrument. Here is a whole world of 
cells, numbering as many individuals as the aggre- 
gate human race has produced for the last million 
years, but all existing and flourishing at the same 
time, and working together towards the one purpose 
of placing the human self in contact with the 
material universe. 

How the individual cells play their part in the 
life of the whole organism is luminously expounded 
in Dr. E. B. Wilson's classical treatise on "The 
Cell" 1 (pp. 58-61). 

" In analysing the structure and functions of the 
individual cell we are accustomed, as a matter of 
convenience, to regard it as an independent elemen- 
tary organism or organic unit. Actually, however, 
it is such an organism only in the case of the 
unicellular plants and animals and the germ-cells 
of the multicellular forms. When we consider the 
tissue-cells of the latter, we must take a somewhat 
different view. As far as structure and origin are 
concerned the tissue-cell is unquestionably of the 
same morphological value as the one- celled plant 
or animal ; and in this sense the multicellular body 
is equivalent to a colony or aggregate of one-celled 
forms. Physiologically, however, the tissue-cell can 
only in a limited sense be regarded as an independent 

1 Columbia University Biological Series. Macmillan Company, 
New York, 1904. 



CO-ORDINATION 5 5 

unit ; for its autonomy is merged in a greater or less 
degree into the general life of the organism. From 
this point of view the tissue-cell must in fact be 
treated as merely a localised area of activity, pro- 
vided it is true with the complete apparatus of cell- 
life, and even capable of independent action within 
certain limits, yet nevertheless a part and not a 
whole. 

" There is at present no biological question of 
greater moment than the means by which the in- 
dividual cell-activities are co-ordinated, and the 
organic unity of the body maintained ; for upon 
this question hangs not only the problem of the 
transmission of acquired characters, and the nature 
of development, but our conception of life itself. 
Schwann, the father of the cell-theory, very clearly 
perceived this ; and after an admirably lucid dis- 
cussion of the facts known to him (1839), drew the 
conclusion that the life of the organism is essentially 
a composite ; that each cell has its independent life ; 
and that ' the whole organism subsists only by means 
of the reciprocal action of the single elementary 
parts.' This conclusion, afterward elaborated by 
Virchow and Haeckel to the theory of the ' cell- 
state,' took a very strong hold on the minds of 
biological investigators, and is even now widely 
accepted. It is, however, becoming more and more 
clearly apparent that this conception expresses only 
a part of the truth, and that Schwann went too far 



56 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

in denying the influence of the totality of the 
organism upon the local activities of the cells. It 
would of course be absurd to maintain that the 
whole can consist of more than the sum of its parts. 
Yet, as far as growth and development are con- 
cerned, it has now been clearly demonstrated that 
only in a limited sense can the cells be regarded as 
co-operating units. They are rather local centres of 
a formative power pervading the growing mass as a 
whole, and the physiological autonomy of the in- 
dividual cell falls into the background. It is true 
that the cells may acquire a high degree of 
physiological independence in the later stages 
of embryological development. The facts to be 
discussed in the eighth and ninth chapters 
will, however, show strong reason for the con- 
clusion that this is a secondary result of de- 
velopment, through which the cells become, as it 
were, emancipated in a greater or less degree from 
the general control. Broadly viewed, therefore, the 
life of the multicellular organism is to be conceived 
as a whole ; and the apparently composite character 
which it may exhibit is owing to a secondary dis- 
tribution of its energies among local centres of 
action. 

" In this light the structural relations of tissue- 
cells become a question of great interest ; for we 
have here to seek the means by which the in- 
dividual cell comes into relation with the totality 



ORGANIC CONTINUITY 57 

of the organism, and by which the general equili- 
brium of the body is maintained. It must be con- 
fessed that the results of microscopical research have 
not thus far given a very certain answer to this 
question. Though the tissue-cells are often appar- 
ently separated from one another by a non-living 
intercellular substance, which may appear in the 
form of solid walls, it is by no means certain that 
their organic continuity is thus actually severed. 
Many cases are known in which division of the 
nucleus is not followed by division of the cell-body, 
so that multinuclear cells or syncytia are thus 
formed, consisting of a continuous mass of proto- 
plasm through which the nuclei are scattered. 
Heitzmann long since contended (1873), though 
on insufficient evidence, that division is incomplete 
in nearly all forms of tissue, and that even when 
cell-walls are formed they are traversed by strands 
of protoplasm by means of which the cell-bodies 
remain in organic continuity. The whole body 
was thus conceived by him as a syncytium, the 
cells being no more than nodal points in a general 
reticulum, and the body forming a continuous 
protoplasmic mass. 

" This interesting view, long received with scep- 
ticism, has been to a considerable extent sustained 
by later researches, and though it still remains sub 
judice, has been definitely accepted in its entirety by 
some recent workers. The existence of protoplasmic 



5§ THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

cell-bridges between the sieve-tubes of plants has 
long been known; and Tangl's discovery, in 1879, 
of similar connections between the endosperm-cells 
was followed by the demonstration by Gardiner, 
Kienitz-Gerloff, A. Meyer, and many others, that 
in nearly all plant-tissues the cell-walls are traversed 
by delicate intercellular bridges. Similar bridges 
have been conclusively demonstrated by Ranvier, 
Bizzozero, Retzius, Flemming, Pfitzner, and many 
later observers in nearly all forms of epithelium ; 
and they are asserted to occur in the smooth 
muscle-fibres, in cartilage-cells and connective 
tissue-cells, and in some nerve-cells. Dendy 
(1888), Paladino (1890), and Retzius (1889) have 
endeavoured to show, further, that the follicle-cells 
of the ovary are connected by protoplasmic bridges 
not only with one another, but also with the ovum ; 
and similar protoplasmic bridges between germ-cells 
and somatic cells have been also demonstrated in a 
number of plants, e.g. by Goroschankin (1883) and 
Ikeno (1898) in the cycads and by A. Meyer (1896) 
in Volvox. On the strength of these observations 
some recent writers have not hesitated to accept 
the probability of Heitzmann's original conception, 
A. Meyer, for example, expressing the opinion that 
both the plant and the animal individual are 
continuous masses of protoplasm, in which the 
cytoplasmic substance forms a morphological unit, 
whether in the form of a single cell, a multi- 



WILSON ON CELL-BRIDGES 59 

nucleated cell, or a system of cells. Captivating 
as this hypothesis is, its full acceptance at present 
would certainly be premature ; and as far as adult 
animal tissues are concerned, it still remains un- 
determined how far the cells are in direct proto- 
plasmic continuity. It is obvious that no such 
continuity exists in the case of the corpuscles of 
blood and lymph and the wandering leucocytes and 
pigment -cells. In case of the nervous system, which 
from an a priori point of view would seem to 
be above all others that in which protoplasmic 
continuity is to be expected, its occurrence and 
significance are still a subject of debate. When, 
however, we turn to the embryonic stages we find 
strong reason for the belief that a material continuity 
between cells here exists. This is certainly the case 
in the early stages of many arthropods, where the 
whole embryo is at first an unmistakable syncytium ; 
and Adam Sedgwick has endeavoured to show that 
in Pervpatus and even in the vertebrates the entire 
embryonic body, up to a late stage, is a continuous 
syncytium. I have pointed out (1893) that even 
in a total cleavage, such as that of Amphioxus or the 
echinoderms, the results of experiment on the early 
stages of cleavage are difficult to explain, save under 
the assumption that there must be a structural con- 
tinuity from cell to cell that is broken by mechanical 
displacement of the blastomeres. This conclusion 
is supported by the recent work of Hamniar (1896, 



60 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

1897), whose observations on sea-urchin eggs I can 
in the main confirm. 

" Among the most interesting observations in this 
direction are those of Mrs. Andrews (1897), who 
asserts that during the cleavage of the echinoderm- 
egg the blastomeres ' spin ' delicate protoplasmic 
filaments, by which direct protoplasmic continuity 
is established between them subsequent to each 
division. These observations, if correct, are of 
high importance ; for if protoplasmic connections 
may be broken and re-formed at will, as it were, 
the adverse evidence of the blood-corpuscles and 
wandering cells loses much of its weight. Meyer 
(1896) adduces evidence that in Volvox the cell- 
bridges are formed anew after division ; and Flem- 
ming has also shown that when leucocytes creep 
about among epithelial cells they rupture the 
protoplasmic bridges, which are then formed anew 
behind them. 

" We are still almost wholly ignorant of the precise 
physiological meaning of the cell-bridges ; but the 
facts indicate that they are not merely channels of 
nutrition, as some authors have maintained, but 
paths of subtler physiological impulse. Beside the 
facts determined by the isolation of blastomeres, 
referred to above, may be placed Townsend's recent 
remarkable experiments on plants, described at 
p. 346. If correct, these experiments give clear 
evidence of the transference of physiological influ- 



GRADES OF VITALITY 6 1 

ences from cell to cell by means of protoplasmic 
bridges, showing that the nucleus of one cell may 
thus control the membrane-forming activity in an 
enucleated fragment of another cell. The field of 
research opened up by these and related researches 
seems one of the most promising in view ; but until 
it has been more fully explored, judgment should 
be reserved regarding the whole question of the 
occurrence, origin, and physiological meaning of the 
protoplasmic cell-bridges." 

This discovery of a probable " protoplasmic con- 
tinuity " gives us a new and vivid insight into the 
intimate structure of that marvellous apparatus 
which we call our body. The untold millions of 
individual cells are bound together by fine threads 
of that primitive jelly which we call protoplasm. 
The whole body is a " syncytium," an organised 
state or community of cells. Most probably the 
albuminous protoplasm, with its nuclei in every 
cell, represents the really essential part of the 
organism, the highest rank in the hierarchy of 
material mechanisms which link our inmost spiritual 
self with the outer world. 

We are familiar with the fact that many parts 
of our bodies are more essential, more " vital " than 
others. In his great work on modern war, Bloch 
draws a diagram of a man showing where wounds 
inflicted are " slight," where " severe," and where 
" fatal." The first areas are left white, the second 



62 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

are shaded, and the last are black. The diagram 
presents the appearance of three beings, one inside 
the other, the black figure being the innermost. 
This diagram applies not only to the body as a 
whole, but to each individual cell of it. For in 
each cell we may distinguish an outer skin or 
covering, which may be classified as unessential 
in company with the storage and decomposition 
products ; an inner active " cytoplasm," in which 
the bulk of the physiological work is carried on ; 
and an innermost nucleus, the governing part of 
the cell, which decides its general activity, fixes 
the broad outlines of its development, and gives 
the first impulse towards division, if such is to 
take place. 

The forces which bring about the necessary 
harmonious development of this vast array of cells 
are the great outstanding riddle of physiology. 
And no wonder, for (as we have already seen) no 
physical explanation will ever explain anything, or 
can, in the very nature of things, be expected to do 
so. We cannot explain life in terms of death, or 
dead matter. For we know life by direct experience, 
but we have only a secondary knowledge of " dead " 
matter, and as for death, we do not know it at all. 

Failing a purely physical explanation of life, we 
have the various vitalistic theories, which distinguish 
between living and dead matter, organic and in- 
organic, as things sharply divided from each other, 



THE ORGANIC HIERARCHY 63 

or as things which entered on a separate develop- 
ment at some remote age. This view, though more 
reasonable than the purely physical view of life, 
suffers from some fatal defects. The sharp division 
between living and dead matter is found to be 
non-existent. Much of human bone, hair, and skin 
is practically inorganic material, having no more 
life than an artificial tooth. On the other hand, 
Lehmann's " living crystals " and Stephane Led tie's 
" artificial plants " imitate so closely the most 
"vital" phenomena of life that we cannot say 
with any certainty where the line of demarcation 
must be drawn. And that line, if it were drawn 
to-day, would probably be obliterated to-morrow by 
new discoveries. 

No, we must take our courage in both hands, 
and prepare to go all the way, following the light 
of our unclouded intellect. There is nothing to 
fear. There is nothing so simple as truth, and 
when our reason is satisfied, our hearts will be at 
peace also. 

The living body is a vast army or hierarchy, with 
elaborately graded ranks, whose graduation is lost 
in the minute subdivisions of the infra-atomic 
universe. Each rank is alive with its own charac- 
teristic life, which, though not widely different from 
the life immediately above it or below it, has a 
tendency to appear fixed and mechanical to beings 
of a far higher rank, and vague and arbitrary to 



64 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

the lower ranks. It is life, life, life, all along the 
scale. 

In moments of supreme consciousness there is in 
the healthy and fully developed human individual 
a free exercise of will and choice, a self-determina- 
tion towards a chosen line of development. No 
logical quibbles will explain that away. It is 
a primary fact of consciousness. Such a pure 
exercise of will may be exceedingly rare, but we 
can in practice approach it as closely as we please. 
To use an expression taken from geometry, we 
can approach it " asymptotically." There may 
always be a certain amount of unconscious impulse 
which makes for determinism, but that impulse 
may become more and more a negligible and im- 
measurably small quantity. We all " have it ,in 
us " to decide our own development, our own fate, 
by a free choice. But it must be a choice of 
practicable alternatives. The degree of practicability 
decides the will-power required, and that degree 
depends largely upon the forces at our command. 
A general may have two alternative ways of attack- 
ing the enemy. Both may be equally advisable 
or equally risky. He chooses, and the army obeys. 
But his powers are limited by his numerical strength, 
his commissariat, the training and morale of his 
troops, the enterprise of the home government, and 
other factors. Within those limits he has freedom 
of choice. So absolute is his power that he can 



FREEDOM OF CHOICE 65 

send thousands of men to their death, and they go 
with a cheer to meet it. He thinks in regiments, 
squadrons, and batteries, as the admiral thinks in 
ships. The individual thinks, instead, in arms and 
legs, in fingers or lips or teeth, in eyes and ears. 
The details involved in the due execution of 
his orders he leaves to the nerves and muscles 
and bones concerned. They are well trained, and 
accustomed to obey. Each consists of millions of 
cells, accustomed to work together, each cell-nucleus 
controlling the proper metabolism of organic materials 
supplied by the " commissariat " to the individual 
cell, replacing waste material, and seeing that the 
work is properly performed. In doing so, the cell- 
nucleus, or rather the life-principle which it visibly 
represents, is no doubt aware of some kind of 
choice or will-power involved in such control. 
That choice, that self-determination, is the central 
aspect of the cellular " life " we have been driven 
to postulate. Each cell has a certain amount of 
" home-rule," circumscribed by the imperial interests 
of the organism as a whole. The consciousness of 
the cell is part of our " organic consciousness," that 
consciousness which built up our bodies from our 
prenatal days. The solidarity of the aggregate 
consciousness of the cells is probably maintained 
by something akin to " telepathy," whereby states 
of consciousness are transmitted to suitably attuned 
receivers. But just as, besides telepathy, we have 

E 



66 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

visible and audible language, signals, telegraphs, and 
telephones, so the cellular system is provided with 
special contrivances designed to localise action and 
sensation. The telepathic control determines the 
general policy of the cells, whereas the nerve control 
carries out its details, and provides for special 
emergencies. 

The whole organism, then, may be compared to 
a kind of sponge of exceptionally fine grain, 
traversed by canals and fibres and strengthened 
in places by those jellies stiffened with lime and 
phosphates which we call bones. Countless 
varied actions can be executed by this admir- 
able mechanism, which surpasses any man-made 
machinery more than the most elaborate watch 
surpasses the flint arrow-head. And this whole 
machine is one. " In the individual," says Le 
Dantec, "there is no local phenomenon." The 
organism is like some palace whose every opening 
is filled with automatic alarms. Every part com- 
municates with every other. A pin-prick, a local 
pressure or tension, raises the temperature of the 
whole apparatus, and produces first, a concentration 
of attention on the spot, a feeling of uneasiness, 
and then a flow of blood towards the threatened 
quarter. The human organism is, in one respect, 
like the amoeba. It is a continuous mass of proto- 
plasm. But, unlike that most primitive of all 
animals, its parts are highly differentiated, and all 



DIFFERENTIATION OF PARTS 67 

are under the control of the nervous system. It 
is useless to circulate food-stuffs through a muscle. 
It will not assimilate them except under the 
proper stimulus from its governing nerve. The 
differentiation of the various parts has the in- 
evitable effect of making some parts more " vital " 
than others. For those parts whose action is 
essential to the nutrition and government of the 
entire system are naturally of greater importance 
than those which are only called upon to perform 
special tasks. Thus, the heart, the lungs, the 
digestive apparatus, and the brains are the citadel 
of life, whose permanent injury means death. The 
limbs and sense organs can almost all be dispensed 
with before life must necessarily cease. And yet 
these latter are those upon whose activity our 
social life is most largely dependent. They are, 
in that sense, " higher " organs. But then we are 
familiar with the " bread-and-butter " argument 
which tells against many " higher " activities, and 
which finds but one more illustration here. The 
moral of it is that our present life is a stage 
preparatory to a higher form. 

Some animals, like the hydra, the starfish, the 
crab, the earth-worm, and the lizard may be cut 
to pieces, and each piece will, under suitable condi- 
tions of food-supply and temperature, grow into a 
complete adult animal. On the other hand, a 
small ciliated microscopic infusorian called para- 



68 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

mtecia, when truncated, remains so, unless it is 
operated upon when very young. The renewing 
power appears, indeed, to be merely a matter of 
age. Every animal has a stage in its growth up 
to which it can restore any limb it loses. It is 
only when bones or other hard and permanent 
structures are formed that the organic conscious- 
ness loses the power of duplicating its own work. 
It is the price the organism has to pay for per- 
manence. We want to do things habitually, " in- 
stinctively," without having to think about it. We 
want certain parts of our organism to be unchang- 
ing, to be always at our immediate disposal, to be 
capable of withstanding or exerting a certain force. 
Well, we get what we want. We secure the 
services of certain combinations of hard substances, 
and place them in position. Once they are pro- 
vided, we forget all about the process by which 
they have been secured, and as their renewal is a 
matter of no urgency, we resign ourselves to leaving 
these hard materials in undisturbed possession of 
their assigned posts. 

But then we have to pay the penalty. And that 
penalty is — death. Could we, like the crab, shed 
our bones every now and then, we might prolong 
our life into thousands of years. But the crab's 
way of growing bones is not our way. We want 
ours inside instead of outside, so that we may re- 
tain our full and quick sensitiveness and mobility. 



WHY WE DIE 69 

Moreover, the placing of the bones inside facilitates 
their own growth and their adaptation to the grow- 
ing organism. 

The primordial sin whose " wages is death " is the 
desire for a more spiritual life, for a larger and 
wider sphere of mental and emotional activity than 
that offered by a mere animal struggle for existence. 
The deathless amoeba is also sinless in this respect. 
Its whole consciousness is probably concerned solely 
with the problems of nutrition and multiplication. 
Its organic consciousness is co-extensive with its 
social consciousness. It has no " subconscious self," 
no areas of consciousness which but rarely emerge 
above the threshold. It does everything consciously 
and deliberately, nothing instinctively. It acquires 
no property in the way of permanent mechanisms, 
held in reserve for special occasions. It has nothing 
to outgrow, no dead matter accumulating in its 
tissues. It is called Proteus, because it can assume 
the most varied forms without endangering its 
anatomy. In fact, it has no anatomy. It is just a 
speck of jelly with a nucleus. That nucleus em- 
bodies the essential life-principle of the animal. 
Says Wilson 1 : " A fragment of a cell deprived of its 
nucleus may live for a considerable time and mani- 
fest the power of co-ordinated movement without 
perceptible impairment. Such a mass of proto- 
plasm is, however, devoid of the powers of assimila- 

] "The Cell," p. 30. 



70 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

tion, growth, and repair, and sooner or later dies. 
In other words, those functions that involve 
destructive metabolism may continue for a time in 
the absence of the nucleus ; those that involve 
constructive metabolism cease with its removal. 
There is, therefore, strong reason to believe that 
the nucleus plays an essential part in the con- 
structive metabolism of the cell, and through this 
is especially concerned with the formative pro- 
cesses involved in growth and development. For 
these and many other reasons, to be discussed here- 
after, the nucleus is generally regarded as a con- 
trolling centre of cell-activity, and hence a primary 
factor in growth, development, and the transmission 
of specific qualities from cell to cell, and so from 
one generation to another." 

There is no birth in the world of Proteus and no 
natural death. Multiplication takes place by the 
splitting of the nucleus, which is followed by that 
of the cytoplasm or cell-substance. This fission 
gives rise to two separate and independent indi- 
viduals, each of which shifts for itself. In the 
higher animals, and in the human being, there is 
in the earliest prenatal stages a similar fission. 
But instead of leading to total separation, this 
fission leads to a co-operative aggregation of cells, 
and eventually to the graded hierarchy already 
spoken of. 

The establishment of this graded hierarchy intro- 



REPRODUCTION 7 1 

duces profound and significant changes into the 
method of propagation. The differentiation of the 
cells becomes " hereditary " in the sense of each cell 
reproducing, by fission, a cell of its own kind. 
Thus, an epithelial cell produces, by fission, two 
cells of epithelium. A nerve cell produces two 
nerve cells. But how is the whole individual to 
be reproduced ? As we have seen in some of the 
lower animals, every single cell retains the power of 
reproducing a whole individual. In the higher 
organisms such powers may exist in a latent form, 
depending upon the provision of external con- 
ditions which cannot practically be supplied, or 
which nobody has yet thought of trying. The 
mechanical, physical, and chemical conditions re- 
quired, for instance, to make a dog's ear, when cut 
off, develop into a dog, are quite unknown, or even 
impossible. The conditions would probably be so 
unusual that the result would be very different 
from the accepted notion of a dog, vague and wide 
though that notion be. The tendency to variation, 
which always exists, and sometimes leads to mon- 
strosities, must be checked unless the most valuable 
lessons laboriously learnt in the previous history of 
the species are to be thrown away. This danger is 
guarded against in the higher organisms by substi- 
tuting conjugation for simple fission. This conju- 
gation implies the union of the nuclei of two cells, 
leading up to their complete fusion, the " twain " 



72 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

becoming " one," and then giving rise to one or 
more new individuals by fission. What conjugation 
is to the simpler organisms, sexual reproduction is 
to the more highly developed ones. The essential 
thing is that the vital portions, the nuclei, of two 
germ-cells should combine. The mechanism for 
producing such combination and safeguarding the 
results of it depend upon less important circum- 
stances. This essential equality between the sexes 
is strikingly borne out by an important recent dis- 
covery made by Van Beneden in 1883. Cell- 
division is usually (i.e. in all cases except those of 
degeneration or intra-cellular division of the nucleus) 
preceded by a striking phenomenon known as mitosis 
or karyokinesis. It is shown by the nucleus of the 
cell, or rather that fibrous part of the nucleus 
which easily takes up colouring matter and is 
therefore called chromatin, forming itself into a 
spireme or tangle of threads, which gradually 
thicken and shorten, and break up into a small but 
perfectly definite number of rods. These rods are 
called chromosomes. They arrange themselves in a 
straight line and split along their length, and each 
new cell takes up just half of the rods thus split to 
form its new nucleus. Every species of plant and 
animal has a fixed number of chromosomes. " In 
some sharks the number is thirty-six ; in certain 
gasteropods it is thirty- two ; in the mouse, the 
salamander, the trout, the lily, twenty- four ; in the 



WHAT IS MOST VITAL 73 

worm Sagitta, eighteen; in the ox, guinea-pig, and 
in man the number is said to be sixteen, and the 
same number is characteristic of the onion." x 

Now in each of the germ-cells whose conjunction 
gives 'rise to the new individual, the number of 
chromosomes is exactly half the number found in 
the ordinary cells of the body. The germ-cells are 
thus equal and supplementary to each other. Their 
combination makes a complete cell, whose sub- 
division is capable, under suitable surroundings, of 
reproducing the entire individual. 

It has been suggested that the chromatin of the 
nucleus is the most vital and living part of each 
cell. Others have put forward a body called the 
" centrosome," a minute speck of matter which 
seems to be the first to divide, and forms two stars 
between which the chromosomes arrange themselves 
before splitting. But the most essential structure 
appears to be the " spindle," a web of fibres con- 
necting the two stars or " asters " with each other. 
This spindle does not take up colouring matter, and 
is therefore less visible under the microscope. In 
summing up a long discussion of the process of 
cell-division, Wilson says 2 : " These facts show that 
mitosis is due to the co-ordinate play of an extremely 
complex system of forces which are as yet scarcely 
comprehended. Its general significance is, however, 

1 Wilson, " The Cell," p. 67. 

2 Ibid. p. 120. 



74 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 

obvious. The effect of mitosis is to produce a 
meristic [part by part] division, as opposed to a 
mere mass-division, of the chromatin of the mother- 
cell, and its equal distribution to the nuclei of the 
daughter-cells. To this result all the operations of 
mitosis are tributary; and it is a significant fact 
that this process is characteristic of all embryonic 
and actively growing cells, while mass-division, as 
shown in amitosis, is equally characteristic of highly 
specialised or degenerating cells in which develop- 
ment is approaching its end." 

In this connection, it should be remembered that 
the most vital part of the cell is not necessarily the 
most clearly visible. In fact, there is no reason 
why it should be visible at all. The rivalry of the 
chromatin and the centrosome for pre-eminence 
may, for aught we know, be a mere illusion, pro- 
duced by peculiarities of refraction and absorption. 
The most essential governing parts of the cell may 
differ in quite other physical properties. Our eyes 
cannot distinguish readily between water and hydro- 
chloric acid and glycerine, and yet these substances 
are widely different in their chemical properties, 
and would look different to eyes sensitive to light 
of other wave-lengths. That we cannot definitely 
locate the sanctum sanctorum of the living cell may 
be a pure accident, or due to the lack of a suitable 
dye. It may be located to-morrow by some new 
chemical means. What concerns us is the proof 



AN INVISIBLE BODY 75 

that every cell is highly differentiated with regard 
to the vitality of its parts. A nucleus weighs about 
a thousandth of the average cell-body. Its really 
vital, and perhaps invisible, portion may be a ten- 
thousandth of the weight of the cell. In other 
words, taking all the cells together, our real living 
matter, the vital portions of our body, may have an 
aggregate weight of about one-fifth of an ounce ! 
Could we eliminate all the rest of the cell material, 
we should have a " body " consisting of all that is 
most " alive " in every single cell. But that " body " 
would be quite invisible, and would, if it filled the 
outline of the body as before, ascend some fifteen 
miles into the air before it found a position of 
equilibrium. It would, indeed, live in a new world, 
hitherto " unseen," retaining all its social and organic 
memories and fulfilling all its essential functions 
except that of exerting force upon ponderable 
matter as we do with the help of our ponderous 
bones. To restore such a body to its ordinary 
mundane functions, it would suffice to enable the 
various cell-centres to resume then assimilating 1 
activities for some little time. Such a withdrawal 
and restoration has nothing inconceivable about it. 
That something of the kind occurs at our own 
death, and that it is a possible, though perhaps 
unusual, process even in our ordinary life, I hope 
to make clear in the sequel. 



CHAPTER V 

THE LAWS OF NATURE 

" We assume the existence of uniformities in nature — natural 
laws : the narrowing down of these into exactitude being the 
endless problem of discovery, and the completest knowledge of 
them already attained at any period being, for that period, the 
basis of all explanation, prediction, and proof." — Alfred Sidgwick 
on "Fallacies." 

To some of us, the laws of nature are as the bars 
of a prison, shutting us off from freedom and the 
alluring delights of the world outside. To others, 
they are a refuge from the whirlpools and tornadoes 
on the sea of existence, or as guiding-stars through 
a dark and trackless forest. We are perpetually 
oscillating between the delights of possession and 
those of acquisition. We are conservative and 
radical in turn. When we have, we are glad of 
the limitations, safeguards, and guarantees offered 
by the immutability of the laws of nature and the 
majesty of the law of the land based on them. 
When we want, we feel keenly the restraint thus 
imposed upon us. We endeavour to remove it 
by discovering superior laws which allow the ex- 
ceptions desired by us. Science is that pursuit 

of knowledge which discovers and formulates the 

7 6 



THE LAWS OF NATURE 77 

laws of nature. Every law so discovered imposes 
new restraints and limitations. Yet science is not 
essentially conservative. On the contrary, it is 
usually regarded as essentially radical and revolu- 
tionary, since it is constantly relegating long- 
cherislied beliefs to the limbo of exploded fallacies. 

Now, what exactly is a law of nature ? Who 
or what is the law-giver ? Who or what enforces 
it ? Can it ever be broken, or superseded, or 
revised ? These are the questions I shall endeavour 
to answer in this chapter. It is necessary to arrive 
at a clear conception of natural law before we can 
penetrate any distance into the unknown land which 
we are endeavouring to explore. 

Our daily life is based upon a number of im- 
possibilities and improbabilities. These are based 
upon " natural laws." We shut up a criminal in 
a dungeon with thick stone walls, iron bars, and 
ponderous locks. It is " impossible " for him to 
get out. Why ? because his muscular force " cannot 
possibly " attain the strength sufficient to burst his 
bonds. We present him with a problem which his 
physical and intellectual powers are incapable of 
solving. We rely upon the cohesive force of granite 
and steel to resist any force which he may bring- 
to bear upon his fetters. And so we keep him 
safely locked up, and if he escapes at all, it is 
usually not the fault of the natural laws we relied 
upon, but the fault of the jailer. 



73 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

Again, we lay in a store of coal, having at the 
back of our mind quite an array of laws which we 
expect to hold good. Among these we may specify 
the following : coal does not decompose ; it does not 
fly away ; it " keeps " indefinitely, unless raised to a 
certain high temperature in the presence of oxygen ; 
when that happens, it burns and gives out heat. 

Other laws upon which we rely are more complex. 
The law of supply and demand, and the laws of 
political economy in general, hold good when taken 
over a wide area, though they fail in almost every 
case taken individually. In the widest sense, a 
natural law is any continuity or constancy we 
observe anywhere. "When we go to an hotel and 
proceed to dress and wash, we use the water as if it 
could by no possibility be sulphuric acid, or a solu- 
tion of potassium cyanide, or a diluted culture of 
cholera morbus, or other bearer of deadly peril. We 
rely upon the average honesty and kindliness and 
carefulness of man, or upon his fear of pains and 
penalties. 

In other cases, our sense of confidence and safety 
is still more precarious. We trust a friend, judging 
from his past actions, or the actions of persons 
resembling him. Because we have known him to 
show signs of manliness, or ability, or sympathy, 
we believe him to be manly, clever, and kind. We 
formulate, in fact, a provisional kind of natural law 
concerning him, or, if you like, an hypothesis, and 



HUMAN AND NATURAL LAW 79 

act upon that until something (or somebody) dis- 
illusions us. We then recognise that the character 
we attributed to our friend was not a " reality," but 
an illusion. 

In other fields we are still less rational. In 
politics we vote for free trade or protection after 
a hasty generalisation from a few cases of pros- 
perity or poverty observed in connection with one 
or the other of these policies, sometimes reasoning 
from a single case imperfectly observed. And yet 
this most unscientific manner of reasoning and 
acting is expounded and advocated by the pick of 
the country's intellect and ability ! 

Little wonder that people turn from such fragile 
reeds to the more solid props offered by the laws ol 
nature discovered by science. Here the area of 
observation is immensely enlarged. Instead of a 
single nation or a few individuals, we have thou- 
sands of objects to judge from, objects which are, 
as a rule, accessible to everybody, so that our 
deductions can be verified by any one who has 
the inclination and the necessary leisure. This 
circumstance secures to the laws of nature a recog- 
nition co-extensive with the human race. Their 
great prestige, their " majesty " as it is sometimes 
called, often produces the erroneous opinion that 
they are unalterable and infallible. As a matter 
of fact, they are as changeable and as fallible as 
the human race itself. Not one of them embodies 



So THE LAWS OF NATUKE 

an eternal and changeless truth. Not one of them 
but must remain subject to revision. They are all 
approximate, some of them closely approximate as 
judged by our present standards, but no matter 
how they are formulated, they may have to be 
recast to-morrow. 

Take two of the most fundamental and universal 
laws known: Newton's law of gravitation, and the 
rectilinear propagation of light. Newton's law 
makes gravitation proportional to the attracting 
masses, and inversely proportional to the square 
of the distance between them. But electrical ex- 
periments have recently shown that mass and 
inertia may depend upon speed, and molecular 
physics have long taught us that at very small 
distances the force varies more rapidly than with 
the square of the distance. Again, the rectilinear 
propagation of light is a kind of optical illusion 
due to the interference of innumerable wavelets. 
When the beam is very narrow, it may be dis- 
tinctly observed to spread out laterally, much as a 
sound-wave would. 

Take the law known under the name of biogenesis, 
which maintains that all living beings are derived 
from other living beings, and none from inanimate 
material. In spite of some apparent exceptions such 
as Burke's radiobes and Lehmann's " living crystals," 
this law still holds good. But how much longer 
will it hold good ? If such a law as that were 



OPEN TO REVISION 8 I 

endowed with all that majesty and sway which is 
sometimes attributed to it, what would happen if it 
ceased to be true ? Everybody knows, of course, 
the answer : things would remain much as they 
always were. There would be no cataclysm, no 
sudden upheaval. These laws are true for us, so 
long as they embody the results of our aggregate 
observation. None of these laws exist in nature 
objectively, apart from the human intellect. The 
chemist maintains for several generations that 
" atoms are indivisible and indestructible." Then 
a physicist comes along and proves that atoms can 
be both split and destroyed. The world, which 
appeared to base its whole existence on the 
chemist's formula, remains profoundly indifferent. 
No, the laws of nature are of purely human 
origin, and of purely human importance. The 
processes which give rise to them — well, that is 
another matter. As Johnstone Stoney puts it, 
What we see moving is the shadow of some 
elaborate machinery. The machinery is invisible 
to us, but we see the shadows of some of its 
cranks and levers and cog-wheels. We observe 
that there is some sameness about the motions, that 
they seem to obey some law. We see a rod 
moving to and fro, and a wheel turning. We 
conclude that the rod turns the wheel, or rather 
(since both rod and wheel are invisible and un- 
known to us) that the shadow of the rod turns the 

F 



82 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

shadow of the wheel ! That is all we are really 
concerned with, since the internal mechanism is 
inaccessible to us. Thus we formulate our " laws 
of nature." A superior being might come in and 
remove a spring or a catch in the machine, and 
then the rod would move without turning the 
wheel. Our " law of nature " would then have to 
be revised or abandoned, and the superior stranger 
would have proved that a wider law holds good. 
He again might be nonplussed by a still more 
gifted individual who, while leaving the catch un- 
touched, might establish some other connection, 
invisible to stranger No. 1, whereby the rod and 
the wheel would again move together and the 
original law of nature be restored ! 

Of these possibilities the advanced man of 
science is fully aware. Hence he is ceaselessly 
endeavouring to get at the internal mechanism 
of the universe, to learn all the secret springs 
and catches, and to control them himself. 

But no amount of analysis or mensuration of 
the shadows will ever enlighten us concerning the 
internal mechanism of the real machine. A surer 
way is to endeavour to construct a machine as best 
we can, or at least to consider its functions and the 
effects it is obviously intended to produce. A 
person ignorant of the watchmaker's art cannot 
expect to understand watchmaking by taking the 
watch to pieces and trying experiments with the 



HYPOTHESES 83 

various wheels and pinions and springs. His best 
way is to enter, as far as possible, into the mind of 
the watchmaker, and find out the ideas underlying 
the connection of the various pieces of mechanism, 
seeing how this moves that, and how something 
keeps something else in position. The access to 
the secret chamber is through the man who holds 
the key thereof. We must learn " to think again 
the great thought of creation," before we may hope 
to fathom its inner secrets. 

This is not yet, however, the accepted method 
of scientific research. Far from it. The scientific 
method of to-day discourages speculation. It en- 
courages observation and experiment, and is frugal 
in the matter of hypotheses. The ruling fashion 
is to assume as little as possible, to be chary of 
theories, to state rather than explain facts. This 
fashion is the result of bitter experience of how 
premature theorising may retard discovery and the 
advance of knowledge. But since the function of a 
theory is not only to explain facts, but also to state 
and summarise them in a concise form, and since 
this latter function results in a distinct economy 
of thought, a sparing use of theory is indulged 
in. The British school is rather more prodigal of 
auxiliary images than the Continental school. But 
though the habit of framing theories is now some- 
what restrained in public, it is so ingrained in the 
human mind that it cannot be eradicated, and being 



84 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

in the blood, it breaks out in all kinds of places, 
half unconsciously. 

This state of things is particularly apparent with 
regard to the subject of this book. Immortality 
has no place in any department of official science. 
The official theory is that there is nothing after 
death but annihilation. Even where that theory 
is not openly professed or acknowledged, or where it 
is not even consciously held, the bias is altogether 
against life after death. Such life, at the best, is 
treated as a " negligible quantity." And not only 
is this the case in official science, but in many 
other departments of human activity. The State 
still disposes of its worst and hopeless criminals by 
capital punishment, which is, in practically all 
cases, tacitly assumed to amount to annihilation. 
If the soul or spirit is referred to, it is done as a 
piece of conservatism, a concession to tradition or 
to ancient and not altogether extinct prejudice. 
Even the Church, by relegating the resurrection 
to a distant and ever-postponed resurrection morn, 
precludes the dead from all possibility of inter- 
course with us, and corroborates the official attitude 
of science and statecraft in a less direct but quite as 
effective manner. 

Thus has the internal aspect of nature been more 
and more lost sight of, and pure materialism, 
expressed or understood, actually holds the field of 
" practical politics." And should any one arise to 



MATERIALISM IN POWER 85 

protest against this inversion of all the canons of 
logic and legitimate reasoning, and endeavour to 
bring about a saner and more fruitful policy in the 
world of thought, he will at once be met by out- 
cries against the reintroduction of medieval super- 
stition with all its horrors and barbarities ! 

Science has put forth its mailed fist. It has 
established a Pax Romano, among the warring 
creeds very much as the white man has confined 
the red or black native to his wigwam or his kraal. 
Finding that speculations concerning the soul of 
man led to more disorders and disturbances of the 
peace than anything else, it has decided to ignore 
that soul, or rather to shut it up in a barred cage 
called official psychology, whence it shall not escape 
to disturb the peace of mind of the materialist 
savant And so we find physics and chemistry and 
physiology and mental pathology, as well as the 
whole of medicine, calmly proceeding on the tacit 
assumption that life is an " epiphenomenon," a 
shadow of shadows, and that its existence, if not 
already accounted for on purely chemical principles, 
may be so accounted for to-morrow, or if not, then 
certainly the day after to-morrow. It somewhat re- 
minds one of the days of the French Revolution, 
when it was bad form to give hereditary or official 
titles, when everybody was citoyen this or citoyenne 
that, and Queen Antoinette was officially styled 
" la veuve Capet." But just as that affectation, 



86 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

brought about by a violent swing of the pendulum, 
has since disappeared, giving way to a more 
dignified tolerance and independence, so, we may 
take it, will the rigid official boycott of the 
spiritual be relaxed when science feels sure of 
the safety of its fundamental and dearly bought 
principles. 

The next great development will be the opening 
of the new passage into the inner workshop of the 
universe, where the Master-builder sits at work. 
We must endeavour to liberate science from its 
materialistic fetters, to enable it to soar into brighter 
and higher realms. Just as, by breaking down 
some of the cast-iron conventions of orthodox 
algebra, Rowan Hamilton created the freer and 
more powerful calculus of quaternions, so must we 
now, by dissolving the prison bars of the material- 
istic convention, enable science to enter on a new 
inheritance, of which this visible and tangible world 
forms a significant but inadequate portion. In 
doing this, it is inevitable that the work should 
bear the well-known faults of pioneering efforts. It 
will have a scent and flavour of the backwoods 
about it. The results will be rough-hewn, the 
tracks will be primitive, and the axe of the wood- 
cutter will leave many an ugly stump behind it. 
But a beginning must be made sometime, and 
having proceeded as far as this, there is no turning 
back. 



the law-givers 87 

Natural Legislation 

I have already, in "Two New Worlds/given reasons 
for believing that our material universe is really an 
infinite series of worlds within worlds having a 
certain numerical relation with each other. The 
argument there given proceeded on purely physical 
data. As our present task attempts the interpreta- 
tion of these physical data in terms of life (every 
other interpretation having been found to lead to 
inconsistencies) we must be prepared to encounter an 
infinite succession of orders of organisation. But 
just as the " atoms" of our world, in spite of explo- 
sions and reactions and test-tubes, are found to be 
nearly as free and independent in their movements 
as, say, our own earth, so, we may suppose, are the 
"souls" of the 100,000,000 atoms which make up 
the minute spore of a fungus largely independent 
of whatever " soul " that spore possesses. Yet some 
of these atoms may well be more beseelt (a convenient 
German word imperfectly rendered by be-soul-ed) 
than others, just as the earth, according to Sir A. 
ft. Wallace, is the only bearer of ordinary organic 
life in our stellar system. Thus, the human race 
may be that which fits the earth for becoming the 
most intellectual " atom " in our solar or sidereal 
system, and enables it thus to embody or represent 
a part of that vast o verso ul which sways the 
visible universe. 



88 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

Defining a world as a system of discrete entities 
of the same order of magnitude and similar general 
attributes, we recognise that our faculties place us 
in relation with three material worlds. These 
are : — 

1. The terrene - world, in which the discrete 
entities are organised beings, ranging from the 
lowest unicellular organism to the highest multi- 
cellular organism. 

2. The supra - world, whose entities are the 
heavenly bodies, solar or planetary. 

3. The infra-world, whose discrete entities are 
atoms and electrons. 

On our earth we are in .touch with all these 
worlds. Matter may be roughly divided into in- 
organic and organic matter, though there is no 
sharp line of demarcation. The organic matter is 
connected with the terrene - world, and the in- 
organic matter with the infra-world. The whole 
earth is an entity of the supra-world, and the 
stars and planets are its fellows and companions. 

In all the three worlds we have cognisance of a 
differentiation of types ; witness the " Evolution of 
Celestial Species," in which Sir Norman Lockyer 
classifies the stars by their spectra ; Darwin's 
" Origin of Species " on earth ; and the evolution 
of the chemical elements which bids fair to account 
for the genesis of the atoms of the various elementary 
substances — the species of the infra- world. 



LEGISLATION FROM BELOW 89 

If we accept Darwin's view of evolution we must 
suppose that species are survivals of variations 
which have a particular fitness for the surroundings 
in which they are placed. Planets and satellites, 
comets and suns people the heavens because solid 
rings and cubes and spirals cannot long survive. 
Plants and animals assume definite forms because 
only such forms can thrive and multiply. [The 
others go to the wall. Atoms grow into definite 
sizes, shapes, and weights because others have in- 
sufficient stability. That stability is governed by 
laws of which we are as yet entirely ignorant, but if 
the atom as such has some kind of intelligence, that 
intelligence is faced by those infra-laws just as we 
are faced by the laws of chemistry and physics. It 
must utilise those laws and adapt itself to them or 
perish. We are not concerned with the infra-laws. 
All we have to do is to consider and obey the laws 
presented to us by the world of atoms — the infra- 
world. Modern researches into radioactivity have 
familiarised us with the conception of the birth, 
growth, and decay of atoms. Future investigations 
may well extend this by showing that atoms have 
a definite and measurable life-period and birth-rate, 
that, in fact, they are as much " living beings " as 
are bacteria, with the difference that their rate of 
life is some 5000 tunes faster, and their number 
a million million times greater. The effect on us 
of this numerical strength, and the rapidity with 



90 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

which the phases of atomic life succeed each other, 
is that details get lost, and we are impressed with 
the general constancy and stability of the atomic 
species : — 

The laws of chemistry are the laws of life of the 
atomic species. 

This is said with regard to the origin and inter- 
action of chemical species as such. When there is 
no interaction, but only chance aggregates of atoms 
of the same or diverse species are considered, we 
get the laws of mechanics or physics. The differ- 
ence is just as if we considered cross-breeding, say, 
in one case, and the sufficiency of cattle-truck 
accommodation in another. The former would be 
terrene chemistry, the latter terrene physics. 

When we have to deal, not with atoms, but with 
higher aggregates of them, we get more complex 
laws. 

Atoms can only form societies under certain 
conditions, which we may call " conditions of mem- 
bership." Other forms of aggregation are no doubt 
occasionally devised, but they disappear owing to 
instability. And the higher we ascend in the scale 
of aggregation, the more complex do these con- 
ditions become, just as the machinery of a State 
becomes the more complicated the larger it grows- 
We get complex molecules, colloids, protoplasm, 
cells. 

Kesult : the laws of biology. 



SOULS WITHIN SOULS 9 1 

And so are our laws of nature built up. They 
are the social laws of inferior ivorlds. Our laws of 
matter are the laws of an " infra-biology," the laws 
evolved by the interaction between living beings of 
an order very far below our own. 



Souls within Souls 

An obvious objection to the above reasoning is 
that it is a kind of rationalised materialism, in which 
the immutable laws of a mechanical nature are 
reduced to the no less immutable laws of a rather 
mechanical infra-society. But this objection ignores 
an equally obvious corollary of the same reasoning. 
There is no determinism. There is " free will " all 
along the line. The laws of nature, like human 
laws, are observed in the aggregate. Any member of 
any order of society is at liberty to transgress them, 
subject, of course, to the penalties given and pro- 
vided. Aggregation is free and voluntary. Obedi- 
ence and conformity are voluntary. Any aggregation 
of any order has a self-determining power strictly 
commensurate with its range of action and sphere 
of influence. All laws of nature are breakable, but 
they are practically unbroken. How closely social 
laws may simulate the generality of natural laws 
is seen in countless conventions of human society. 
What strange being, watching a crowd of 10,000 
Europeans, would ever conclude or suspect that all 



92 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

men, Europeans included, were born without hats, 
or, indeed, without any clothing whatever ? Or, if 
the generality of head-gear may be put down to 
natural causes, what causes but social laws can 
account for the male evening attire or the striking 
and simultaneous changes in feminine fashions ? 

But what is this same aggregation ? What 
bridges the gulf which separates every two in- 
dividuals ? 

Here we approach the next cross-road. Materialism 
lets the world consist of discrete particles, capable, 
in some logically inconceivable way, of interacting 
with each other. How on such a system any two 
things can ever become alike when there is any 
possibility of differentiation remains a mystery. Or 
how, granted a primordial uniformity, differences 
can ever arise, is equally mysterious. No, we must, 
in accordance with the principle of Economy, pro- 
ceed from the Known to the Unknown. The Known 
in this case is the interaction among our fellow- 
creatures. The Unknown is interaction in general. 
Human interaction is based upon a fundamental 
relationship known to biology as the continuity of 
the germ-plasm, but which from our point of view 
must be styled the Divisibility of the Human Soul. 
Just as the body of the apple is part of the body of 
the tree, so the soul of the apple is part of the soul 
of its parent, the soul of the infant part of the 
mother's soul. Omne vivum e vivo is one of the best- 



UNIVERSAL LIFE 93 

established facts of biology. No life without previous 
life. Ultimately all living beings are our blood- 
relations, which means also our soul-relations. Let 
us be deliberate, courageous, and emphatic about 
the word " all." Since there is no dead matter, but 
all is life, our soul-stuff is co-extensive with the 
universe, and not with the visible and tangible 
universe only, but with the life that was, the life 
that is, and the life that is yet to be. Thus we 
catch a far-off glimpse of that great Universal Soul 
towards which indeed " the whole creation moves." 
Ultimately there is only One that lives. We all 
are sparks from that Divine fire, not thrown off at 
some distant and half-forgotten date, but sustained 
by It now, and through It, linked Avith every being 
that exists, or has existed, or shall exist in scecula 
sceculorum. 

Remember that, but for the elimination of " dead 
matter " we are still moving within the sphere of 
influence of orthodox and accepted science. But 
already we may perceive the vast range of added 
power and enhanced possibilities that are opening 
out before us. We may feel the thrill of our new 
freedom, Ave may see the light of the dawn that will 
illumine the rising day of the new knowledge. We 
must now get ready to enter upon our new inheri- 
tance. We can " call our soul our own," and as 
regards our body, that is no longer our soul's prison- 
house, but its storehouse and library, subject in 



94 THE LAWS OF NATURE 

every detail to our superior will, provided we have 
due regard to the traditions and prejudices of our 
vast army of subordinates. It is in our power to 
consider all their requirements, to satisfy all their 
demands, to pay the maximum price they may 
exact from us for obeying our behest. So much 
for our physical organism. And then we have our 
social life, the intercourse with our equals, " as a 
Sovereign State with a Sovereign State," in which all 
is at our disposal if we will but pay the price or take the 
penalty, but where the penalty becomes a reward if 
we but further the interests of that higher organism 
which is the community, our nation, or humanity 
at large. And lastly, we have the central link, 
which is unbreakable eternally, which connects us 
up with the Highest, through superior aggregations 
or organisations of which we are as yet but dimly 
aware, but which some, more privileged than the 
rest, see in rare glimpses in moments of ecstasy. 
Such a rare moment is this, perhaps, of ours, when 
we first see the ultimate consequences of this new 
vision of the universe. Who would not say that, 
even if it be not true, it deserves to be true ? Yet 
truth is never wholly attainable. We can only 
make occasional strides towards it, big or little. 
This, let us hope, is a big stride. But neither can 
truth be made part of ourselves except by patient 
and detailed effort. In what follows, therefore, we 
must return to the plodding and the spade-work. 



THE NEW OUTLOOK Q5 

Science has been built up by the countless individual 
labours of innumerable observers. If materialism 
has for a time enthralled it, it is because its eyes 
were fixed in the eye-pieces of the microscope and 
the telescope, its hands were in contact with actual 
tangible fact. So must ours be, but our outlook 
must be wider, our instruments more accurate, our 
reagents more delicate, our tests more searching and 
sensitive. We must account for all the accumu- 
lated facts of science as well as is done by any 
existing theory. In addition, we must account for 
a large number of new facts not embraced by any 
existing theory, simply because existing theories are 
diametrically opposed to their possibility. If we 
can do that, no power on earth or heaven can stand 
against us, and science will, in a few years, be re- 
modelled in accordance with these new and wider 
conceptions. 



CHAPTER VI 

BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

" If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So 
also it is written, The first Adam became a living soul. The last 
Adam became a life-giving spirit." — Saint Paul. 

Our next great task is not one of analysis, but of 
synthesis. We have reduced the whole world and 
all existence to an infinite gradation of intelligences, 
all possessing a degree of freedom, but all eternally 
linked with the Universal Oversoul. From these 
simple data we must now reconstruct in detail the 
world we live in, with its animal, vegetable, and 
mineral kingdoms, its stars and molecules, its light 
and sound and heat, its birth and death, its joy and 
sorrow, its goodness and truth and beauty, its evil 
and falsity and ugliness, its love and hate, its selfish- 
ness and self-sacrifice, its age-long evolution and 
final destiny. It is a gigantic task, a task attempted 
hitherto only by one system, that which its authors 
style a " scientific monism," but which is known 
popularly with sufficient accuracy as materialism. 

Other systems of philosophy have indeed claimed 
a like universal scope, but they have always postu- 
lated a dualism which the modern mind feels more 

9 6 



BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 97 

and more to be intolerable. The divorce between 
mind and matter cuts at the very root of their 
vitality. It is the old feud between Ormuzd and 
Ahriman, between light and darkness, between an 
all-powerful Good and an all but all-powerful Evil. 

It is not surprising that such unsatisfactory 
systems have to give way before any kind of con- 
sistent monism. The dualistic systems can only 
exist by the hope of a final cataclysm, in which the 
greatest and best of the powers shall finally prevail. 
But such a cataclysm is philosophically impossible. 
If it ever takes place, it must take place at a definite 
time. If it is decisive, that epoch will divide all 
time into two eternities, one before the cataclysm 
and the other after it. Thus the cataclysm will be 
an abrupt and absolute break in the continuity of 
eternity, and we have to account for the peculiar 
accident which placed us at the hither side of the 
break instead of the farther side. Moreover, if the 
cataclysm takes place in a measurable time, let that 
time be x years. These x years will be such years to 
us only, in our present state. In another conceivable 
state, they might be equivalent to as many seconds, 
or, again, to as many geological eras. Time is only 
relative to the events taking place. It has no 
absolute existence. And in whatever way we 
imagine the cataclysm to take place, it will become 
meaningless if we make our scale of space or time 
large enough or small enough. 

G 



98 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

No, the cataclysm must go, and all forms of dualism 
must go with it. This has been felt more and more 
clearly. Hence the steady advance of monism. 
The materialist says : " There is but one God, and 
that is matter, eternal and indestructible." We 
also preach but one God, but it is a living God. 
Instead of universal death and deadness, we postulate 
universal life. Instead of regarding life as an 
accident, an efflorescence, we regard it as the only 
reality. Instead of explaining the life which we 
know by the matter of which we know nothing, we 
proceed from the known to the unknown, with pre- 
cisely that regard for the economy of thought which 
is the pride and mainstay of orthodox science. 

Let us see. We have evolved the laws of nature 
from the social pressure of the infra-world. The 
life-struggles of that vast mass of atomic existences 
present us with certain regularities and uniformities 
which we find universally followed. As the regis- 
trar-general boils down his births, marriages, and 
deaths into dry figures — birth-rates, death-rates, 
marriage-rates " per 1000 of population " — and 
finds them obeying a certain rule, often remaining 
constant for years to within a small decimal frac- 
tion, so we find the seething life of countless deni- 
zens of the lower worlds summarised in a few broad 
rules, which are essentially statistical laws. These 
rules we profit by to build up our bodies and souls 
and spirits. And what are these ? ^ 



AN INDIVIDUAL 



99 



To illustrate our conception of the relations 
between body and soul we shall use a diagram 
constructed on certain simple principles. It gives 
an intelligible scheme illustrating the gradation of 
beings which make up an " individual," right down 
to the infinitely little. 

Let O represent the universal centre of being, and 
let the rays proceeding from it represent separate 
intelligences. Let a line or plane MN represent a 




Fig. l. 



" world " in which these intelligences appear and 
act under similar conditions. The intersections of 
MN and the rays will be points, i.e. they will be 
" separate individuals," without any apparent direct 
connection with each other. They will, however, 
not be really isolated, as they all connect through 
0. This corresponds to our general scheme of 
existence, a number of apparently separate indi- 
viduals united by an unseen mechanism with the 



100 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

centre of all existence. It is a scheme which has 
many parallels in everyday life. A State, an army, 
a stock exchange, a telephone exchange, in fact, any 
human organisation, and, for that matter, any 
organisation whatever, is built on the same general 
plan. We must further postulate that is eternal, 
and that every ray is eternal. For if any ray could 
be annihilated, itself could be annihilated. The 
line MN is arbitrary. It can be shifted without 
affecting the eternity of the rays. In other words, 
the " worlds " in which the intelligences can act 
are infinite in number. 

If the rays are eternal, they cannot either be 
born or die. We are inclined also to postulate that 
their number is infinite, as a limited number would 
mean a limited universe, and that is inconceivable. 
Still, the infinity of the number is not quite so 
obvious a necessity as their eternity. For the 
present we will assume that the number is infinite. 

So far, then, we have an infinite number of eternal 
intelligences capable of acting in an infinite number 
of different worlds. We must now get closer to the 
meaning of the word " acting." The most obvious 
development is to endow the rays with motion, 
which changes their relative position. But position 
in itself does not exert any effect unless there is 
already a mutual action which depends upon that 
position. Let us take an analogy from celestial 
mechanics, and postulate an attraction between any 



OUR DIAGRAM IOI 

one ray and every other, which varies inversely as 
the square of the distance. To make this calcul- 
able, we must also postulate that the rays are 
elastic, so that as a rule they remain straight lines. 
They cannot get entangled, as their ends cannot be 
manipulated, and they are geometrical lines (i.e. 
length without thickness). 

All these provisions are not intended to fix the 
" mechanical properties of intelligence," but simply 
to determine the working of our diagram. The 
diagram can prove nothing. It can make valuable 
suggestions, and the value of these will be the 
greater the more closely our symbolic diagram 
corresponds with the reality. Having got all the 
suggestions we like out of it, we can, if we please, 
discard our diagram in favour of another with 
different assumed properties. 

We have, however, to endow our rays with at 
least one other non-geometrical property before we 
can utilise our diagram for an analysis of the uni- 
verse as we know it. We have postulated that each 
individual ray is eternal. That means that it can- 
not lose its identity. It cannot perfectly coincide 
with any other ray. It can, however, approach it 
as closely as we like. It can be in " contact " with 
it for a certain part of its length, but its lower ends 
must always remain separate. 

The junction of two rays gives us a new kind of 
point, a new kind of individuality, an individual 



102 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

intermediate between the centre and the ultimate 
'' monad." 

In the world MN the appearance is much the 
same, but in the world PQ a new kind of individual 
has appeared at A. Five boating experts, we will 
say, come together and form themselves into a 




Fig. 2. 



boat's crew. That crew is an " individual " as 
regards the training and the race. It is repre- 
sented by A in the boat-racing world. When it is 
disbanded, the scheme of Fig. 1 reappears. 

The importance of junctions or knots like A 
cannot be exaggerated. It symbolises individuality, 
the secret of sentient, organised being. It is the 



GENESIS OF INDIVIDUALS 103 

Gorclian knot which we have set ourselves here to 
disentangle. The laws of knot-formation are the 
laws of the organised universe. 

Let us next endeavour to construct a complete 
individual of our own order by the same symbolism. 
The human body consists of organs, which are to a 
certain extent self-contained and independent. The 
organs consist of cells, which also have such a cer- 
tain amount of home rule. The cells again are 
supposed to consist of biogens or protoplasts, which 
lead to some extent an independent life within the 
cell-organisation. The biogens consist of colloid 
aggregates, these again of complex molecules, and 
these again of atoms. We know nothing of the 
relative degrees of independence of all these, but 
we may assume with some show of reason that the 
atoms, at all events, are largely self-contained and 
independent. Thus we have in Fig. 3, a human 
being at A, one of his organs at B, one of the cells 
of that organ (say, a liver-cell) at C, one of the 
biogens of that cell at D, and at E, inseparable 
from its companions by the most powerful micro- 
scope, we have a single atom. Below that again we 
have further subdivisions, which, however, are in- 
visible to us, and this continuous further subdivision 
may be symbolised by a thickening of the lines down 
to the infinitely small. The latter is embodied in 
the diagram by continually halving the successive 
intervals between one grade and the next. This 



104 



BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 



device gives an infinite succession of gradations, which 
stops at the base-line. 

To represent reality more closely, the cells C 
should not be only nine in number, but more like 




World of Cells 



World ofBiogens 

World of Atoms 
Infra World 

: >>— Infinitesimal. 



Fig. 



a million million (a " billion "). But this would 
introduce needless confusion. The principle is all 
we want to show. 

This, then, is the human body, surely a more 
rational representation, more in accordance with 



A HUMAN UNIT 105 

both philosophy and physiology, than any other 
hitherto devised ! It gives us a complete definition 
of the human body. But next we want to find the 
soul. 

That there is some difference in the value of the 
various constituents of the body is indisputable. 
Some organs are "vital," others can be dispensed 
with. In each organ, again, some cells are more 
important than others. Within the cell itself, as 
we have already seen (p. 65), it is the nucleus 
which governs the processes of assimilation, growth, 
and repair. Within the nucleus, again, we have 
the chromatin, of somewhat undecided predominance. 
And there is no reason why the process should stop 
there. Whatever may be the " world " we are 
considering, we shall always find that some parts 
of it are essential to the organism, others unessential, 
others again purely accidental and easily separable, 
or even oppressive and noxious. 

In the human subject, the nerve cells are credited 
with the most effective control of the organism. 
Every muscular fibre has embedded in it the 
flattened root-plate of a nerve, which connects it 
directly with the brain, furnishing a wire-like 
connection which strikingly recalls one of a bundle 
of telephone wires, or one of a bundle of " rays " in 
our own diagram above. 

This gradation, according to essential value or 
importance, must also be read into our diagram 



106 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

if it is to represent symbolically the main facts 
of life. In order to do this, we will establish the 
convention that the central branches of every unit 
are to be the most essential or " vital," and the 
lateral branches the less vital. Thus, hi the world 
of organs passing through the point B the central 
knot may represent the nervous system, and in 
the world of cells some brain cells or important 
" sympathetic " ganglia may be predominant enough 
to be assigned the central place. Modern physiology 
does, however, not favour the idea of centralising 
life hi any particular system or set of organs, more 
especially as all the cells are closely connected 
by cell-bridges (see p. 57). We must therefore 
recognise that there is a continuous gradation of 
importance, and that on some occasions the less im- 
portant organs and cells may assume an increased 
importance. This is instanced by cases in which an 
operation on some non-vital part is followed by 
death from " shock." If we wanted to extract all 
the essential parts of the body, leaving behind those 
which are non-essential, it would be more advisable 
to extract the nucleus from every cell. Suppose 
for the moment that this could be done ; what 
would be the effect on the remainder of the body ? 
Obviously its behaviour would be similar to that 
of a single cell which has been deprived of its 
nucleus. On this subject Wilson says l : " A frag- 

1 " The Cell," p. 30. 



EXTRACTION OF NUCLEI 107 

ment of a cell deprived of its nucleus may live 
for a considerable time and manifest the power of 
co-ordinated movement without perceptible impair- 
ment. . . . Those functions that involve destructive 
metabolism may continue for a time in the absence 
of a nucleus ; those that involve constructive meta- 
bolism cease with its removal." The body will not 
assimilate, it will not grow, it will have no power 
of repairing itself. It will gradually die. Mean- 
while the nuclei will retain all their capacities, 
and, if provided with suitable surroundings, with 
food-supplies at the proper temperature, will resume 
their functions as if nothing had happened, leaving 
the abandoned body to its fate. 

Let us consider for a few moments longer the 
nuclear organism which we have extracted. Let 
us endeavour to obtain as clear a view of it as 
possible. If it retains the outline of the body, 
it will have just about the density of air. Its 
particles are, however, over a million times heavier 
than air molecules. They will, in fact, form a kind 
of mist, and a calculation by Stokes' law shows that 
if left to itself in air, such a collection of nuclei 
would settle down at the rate of about one inch in 
eight hours. 

The extraction of nuclei has often been accom- 
plished in the physiological laboratory by artificial 
peptic digestion. But the very fact that this is 
possible should warn us against identifying the 



108 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

nucleus with what used to be called the " vital 
principle" of the body. It is already fairly clear 
that not all parts of the nucleus are equally vital. 
There is the chromatin, which greedily takes up 
colouring matter. There is the almost invisible 
linin, which forms the network and the spindle- 
fibres. There is the paralinin or ground substance. 
There is, further, the pyrenin, of which the nucleoli 
consist. And, lastly, there is the amphipyrcnin, the 
substance of the nuclear membrane. Which of all 
these is the most essential it is impossible as yet 
to say. Wilson (p. 334) warns his reader "that 
in the whole field of microchemistry we are still 
on such uncertain ground that all general con- 
clusions must be taken with reserve." It is not 
even decided whether the staining reactions (upon 
which we depend for discriminating between the 
various constituents of the nucleus) are of a physical 
or chemical nature. 

Our search for the " spiritual body " may be a 
prolonged one, but there is no reason why it should 
be indefinitely prolonged. At some future time 
we may succeed in tracing a visible difference 
between a cell in full functional activity and a 
cell which has just " died." Perhaps that could 
be done even now. But since we are not en rapport 
with the life of a cell, we cannot fix upon the 
moment of death. Whatever the " vital principle " 
may be, it is probably associated with definite 



THE SPIRITUAL BODY 109 

material parts of the system. Indeed, we may say 
it consists of those parts. This is not materialism, 
since we have postulated that all matter is alive. 
These vital material parts are those entities which 
control the organism on behalf of our individuality. 
They are the officials which are empowered to act 
in the name of the Sovereign. 

Now we have had reasons for believing that 
there is an infinite gradation both in the order 
of the subservient entities and in their relative 
importance. If, therefore, we call the aggregate of 
the more vital entities of our body our " spiritual 
body," we must guard against any hard and fast 
line of demarcation. There is no limiting line 
where we can say : This is spiritual, that is not 
spiritual. It is only a question of more or less. 
It matters little what we call the vital aggregate. 
We may call it the spiritual body, or the " astral " 
body (an unfortunate word) or simply the " soul." 
That the word " soul " has come to mean something 
altogether immaterial is only an accident. To 
follow that practice would be to rehabilitate the 
dogma of the existence of dead matter which it 
was our first business to demolish. We shall 
therefore simply call this vital aggregate " the 
soul," and next inquire whether, and under what 
circumstances, it is capable of existence apart from 
the body. 

If we assumed, as before, that the soul consisted 



HO BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRTT 

simply of the cell nuclei, we should have to 
acknowledge that it is apparently impossible for 
the nuclei to exist separately. In any case, they 
are not observed to leave the cell at its death, 
but to " die " with it. What we have to find out 
is whether the soul can leave the body during its 
lifetime, or only at the death of the body, if 
at all. 

A few years ago it would not have been per- 
missible to think that any assemblage of material 
particles could simultaneously leave every cell 
of the body. But in the last few years our ideas 
of the possibilities of " matter " have been con- 
siderably enlarged. The atom has, with great 
probability, been shown to be a system of very 
much smaller bodies called " electrons," so that if 
an atom were enlarged to a sphere fitting within 
the orbit of Neptune, it would not be much more 
close-grained than is our solar system. This leaves 
ample room for all kinds of interpenetration, and 
we have to attribute the observed stability of our 
body, its constancy of volume and outline, to the 
play of imponderable forces acting at a distance 
across spaces vast in comparison with the size of 
the particles upon which they act. On this view, 
then, the body is itself a kind of mist, and there 
is nothing against the possibility of extracting from 
it a finer mist, and doing so in a short time, and 
repeatedly, with a nearly permanent possibility of 



MECHANISM OF SEPABATION I I I 

restoring it to its former place. For— and this is 
significant — the force of cohesion, which keeps our 
body together, is almost certainly of electrostatic 
origin. The full possibilities of electrostatic force 
are never realised in ordinary physical phenomena. 
It is quite conceivable that a more pronounced 
separation of positive and negative electricity in 
the " vital extract " or " soul " should amply com- 
pensate the tenuity of its constitution, and give it 
a consistency sufficient for all ordinary purposes. 

Nothing can, therefore, be said a priori against 
the possibility, at all events, of a separation of the 
soul from the body, and of its temporary existence 
as a separate entity. 

Now such a separation is not a mere possibility. 
It is a 'practiced reality. It is known to modern 
psychical research as to " externalisation of person- 
ality " (I 'exteriorization de la personnalite). Details 
of this will be given in future chapters, but it may 
be stated here that a large number of credible obser- 
vations are on record in which parts of the human 
form, more especially hands and arms, have been dup- 
licated and have emerged from the body in a more 
or less shadowy state, not so shadowy, however, but 
that they could exert considerable force and produce 
results capable of being measured and automatically 
recorded. In other cases, entire human forms have 
been thus projected, and have been material enough 
to produce the appearance of normal human 



112 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

personalities. These have, as a rule, been clothed 
in appropriate drapery, and it is this drapery, 
rather than the forms themselves, which have 
provoked intense incredulity. This attitude is, 
however, very illogical. If tangible hands, limbs, 
and faces can be thus produced, it means that a 
great deal of unessential matter (almost what we 
might call " ballast ") is added to the soul-form. 
And if that is done, why draw the line at a little 
additional " ballast " which enables the forms to 
appear in a mixed company without immediately 
raising insuperable objections to their presence ? 

However inconceivable it may be to us that 
elaborately organised forms should be built up in 
a few minutes, there is not a trace of a priori 
improbability about it. Such a feat is a common- 
place of nature, which builds up the most intricate 
organisms by the million at a time, and consider- 
ably exceeds the record of the printer in producing 
additional copies of a design once provided. 

If we wanted to represent the soul diagram- 
matically, it would suffice to draw straight lines 
down from the level of C (Fig. 3 above), without 
any thickening towards the infinitesimal below. 
This would mean that none but the most essential 
parts form part of the soul. Could we arrive at 
some quantitative estimate of the proportion of 
vital (or detachable) portions to the whole, we might 
arrive at a really scientific definition of the soul. 



IS THE SOUL SEPARABLE ? I I 3 

We know that if it were one-tenth per cent., for 
instance, the soul would have the specific gravity 
of air. It would float in the air. If the pro- 
portion were less, and the volume were the same, 
the soul would rise in the air like a balloon, 
and find its natural home somewhere in the 
higher atmosphere. This would give a physical 
justification for the old-fashioned " heavenward " 
gaze upwards ! As regards the " spirit," that term 
is too vague to be capable of even a provisional 
definition. In any case, to judge from analogy, 
there is no hard and fast line of demarcation 
between soul and spirit. Perhaps we might take 
the three straight lines radiating from A as re- 
presenting the spirit, ignoring all branches which 
split off below. Or perhaps the main line upwards 
from A might serve as a more suitable symbol. 

If the soul can be proved to be separable from 
the body even during the lifetime of a person, half 
the battle for immortality is fought and won. The 
great and overwhelming argument for the annihi- 
lation of the human individual at death is that no 
characteristic message from his mind to ours any 
longer reaches us. If we can prove that this is 
simply due to a kind of " moult," whereby an out- 
worn or damaged covering is laid aside in favour 
of either vastly increased freedom or a more suit- 
able covering, death will have lost most of its 
terrors. If physical death is a daily process, which 

H 



114 BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 

only attains a certain climax or permanence at the 
time of this " moult," it -will no longer be looked 
upon as an impassable gulf. And, to go a little 
farther, if we can prove that the confinement of the 
soul in a heavily ballasted body conduces to its 
stability and safety, and facilitates the acquisition 
of certain kinds of knowledge, we shall understand 
that life and death are not matters of tragedy, but 
entirely matters of convenience, utility, and comfort. 
The ultimate fate of the human monad may still 
remain a matter of speculation and some uncer- 
tainty, but it will become apparent that this uncer- 
tainty has nothing to do with physical death, and 
will, in all probability, not be removed or in any 
way affected by it. 

For practical life it will be useful to know more 
about the possibilities of temporary separation of 
soul and body, possibilities which largely partake 
of the nature of physical and physiological problems. 
The study of these possibilities will annex to science 
most of the realms hitherto regarded as " occult," 
and will enable us to deal with ghosts, apparitions, 
hauntings, and doubles much as we do now with 
meteorites or comets or icebergs, while it will throw 
the searchlight of accurate investigation over the 
path which we all one day must tread on our way 
into the unseen world. 



PART IT 

CHAPTER I 

BIRTH 

.Birth and death are the boundary stones of earth-life. 
Immortality presents itself in two different aspects 
in connection with these two events. In considering 
birth, we are faced by the problem of pre-existence, 
just as after death comes the problem of continued 
life. 

In the process of birth we have to account for 
the appearance in the world of a new individual. 
The progress from birth to death is irreversible. 
Yet there is no logical necessity for its being so. 

Consider the alternatives; and suppose that a 
portion or the whole of a human life process were 
reversible. If that portion were one-half of it, we 
should have a normal development from birth up 
to the age of thirty or forty, and then a gradual 
reversal, a diminution of bulk and strength, a gener- 
alisation instead of a specialisation of functions, more 
cell-fusion than cell-division, more elimination than 
acquisition, and a final dwindling of the organism 
to an invisibly small germ-cell, which in turn 



I I 6 BIRTH 

might fuse with other cells and finally become 
untraceable. 

A reversal of the whole life-process is more 
difficult to conceive. A fully formed but great lv 
ossified human body would have to become 
suddenly animated by a human intelligence, 
would have to gain in strength, suppleness, and 
soundness, to arrive at full vigour, and then 
dwindle to youth and infancy as already indicated. 

Such pure reversals are unknown. But that 
there is a reversal in the tendency towards ex- 
pansion admits of little doubt. The " second 
childhood " of old age looks like a reversal of 
some process associated with birth. It is as if, 
instead of expanding its realm and accreting new 
material, the soul retired from the world and 
gradually reduced its sphere of action and in- 
fluence. The loss of stature and weight which 
usually accompanies old age is an eloquent indi- 
cation of the general tendency towards retrench- 
ment, a tendenc}^ which, but for the stability of 
the more permanent tissues, would no doubt go 
much farther than it does. 

In the course of his " threescore years and ten " 
man builds him a house, many materials of which 
are permanent, and designed to be so in order to 
enable him to take a certain set of conditions as a 
firm and changeless base of operations. When the 
possibilities of development under those conditions 



CELL-DIVISION I I 7 

are exhausted, when the novelty has worn off, the 
organism is not demolished as carefully as it was 
built up. It is laid aside, like a garment outworn. 
The demolishing work is left to "nature's scavengers," 
the bacteria of putrefaction. 

Although there is this rwpetissement, this re- 
trenchment towards both the boundaries of life, 
there are in other ways most significant differences. 
Death is not associated with the living in the way 
that birth is. Death is a solitary act, while birth 
is most intimately bound up with the maternal 
organism. The generalisation Omne vivum e vivo 
holds good, as far as we know, for the entire 
organic world. No individual is born into this 
world without the vital co-operation of at least 
one living individual, and in most cases two. 

In its simplest form, the problem of birth appears 
to us in the process of unicellular cell-division, and 
here again the simplest conditions are found in 
the flagellates, such as Tetramitus, a little animal 
consisting of a single cell provided with four hair- 
like tentacles which enable it to propel itself through 
water. It resembles a bag of jelly, with a darker 
central sphere, apparently without structure, and 
granules of chromatin scattered irregularly about 
it. When division approaches, the sphere becomes 
lengthened out, a constriction appears about the 
middle, which becomes more pronounced and finally 
leads to cleavage. At the same time, the granules 



I I 8 BIRTH 

collect about the sphere and divide themselves into 
two groups, each group attaching itself to one of 
the cloven spheres. These move apart in the 
substance of the cell, and the whole bag of jelly 
repeats the cleavage. The hair-like flagellse do 
the same, so that they become eight in number, 
and when finally " the painter is cut " we have two 
individuals where before we had only one. 

This is " birth " in its simplest form. But if we 
can account fully for this, the chief difficulties of 
the problem are solved. It would only remain to 
deal with the problem of conjugation, or the union 
of two different individuals which as a rule precedes 
the production of new ones. Of this, Wilson says 1 : 
" The conjugation of unicellular organisms possesses 
a peculiar interest, since it is undoubtedly a proto- 
type of the union of germ- cells in the multicellular 
forms. Biitschli and Minot long ago maintained 
that cell-divisions tend to run in cycles, each of 
which begins and ends with an act of conjuga- 
tion. In the higher forms, the cells produced in 
each cycle cohere to form the multicellular body ; 
in the unicellular forms the cells separate as distinct 
individuals, but those belonging to one cycle are 
collectively comparable with the multicellular body. 
The validity of this comparison, in a morphological 
sense, is generally admitted. No process of conju- 
gation, it is true, is known to occur in many uni- 

1 " The Cell," p. 222. 



CONJUGATION I I 9 

cellular and in some multicellular forms, and the 
cyclical character of cell-division still remains sub 
judice. It is none the less certain that a key to the 
fertilisation of higher forms must be sought in the 
conjugation of unicellular organisms. The difficul- 
ties of observation are, however, so great that we 
are as yet acquainted with only the outlines of the 
process, and have still no very clear idea of its finer 
details or its physiological meaning. The pheno- 
mena have been most clearly followed in the infu- 
soria by Biitschli, Engelmann, Maupas, and Richard 
Hertwig, though many valuable observations on the 
conjugation of unicellular plants have been made 
by De Bary, Schmitz, Klebahn, and Overton. All 
these observers have reached the same general 
result as that attained through study of the fertilisa- 
tion of the egg ; namely, that an essential pheno- 
menon of conjugation is a union of the nuclei of the 
conjugating cells. Among the unicellular plants both 
the cell-bodies and the nuclei completely fuse. 
Among animals this may occur ; but in many of 
the infusoria union of the cell-bodies is only 
temporary, and the conjugation consists of a 
mutual exchange and fusion of nuclei. . . . We 
may first consider the conjugation of infusoria. 
Maupas's beautiful observations have shown that 
in this group the life-history of the species runs in 
cycles, a long period of multiplication by cell- 
division being succeeded by an ' epidemic of con- 



120 BIRTH 

j ligation,' which inaugurates a new cycle, and is 
obviously comparable in its physiological aspect 
with the period of sexual maturity in the metazoa. 
If conjugation does not occur, the race rapidly 
degenerates and dies out ; and Maupas believes 
himself justified in the conclusion that conjugation 
counteracts the tendency to senile degeneration and 
causes rejuvenescence, as maintained by Butschli 
and Minot." 

Wilson then goes on to describe the essential 
phenomena occurring during conjugation. They 
are extremely significant : — 

" The infusoria possess two kinds of nuclei, a 
large macronucleus and one or more small micro- 
nuclei. During conjugation the macronucleus de- 
generates and disappears, and the micronucleus 
alone is concerned in the essential part of the 
process. The latter divides several times, one of 
the products, the germ-nucleus, conjugating with a 
corresponding germ-nucleus from the other indi- 
vidual, while the others degenerate as ' corpuscules 
de rebut.' The dual nucleus thus formed, which 
corresponds to the cleavage-nucleus of, the ovum, 
then gives rise by division to both macronuclei 
and micronuclei of the offspring of the conjugating 
animals." 

Here, then, we have an epitome of the processes 
by one or other of which all living beings increase 
and multiply and people the earth. 



NECESSITY FOR MULTIPLICATION I 2 I 

Herbert Spencer propounded an ingenious theory 
to account for the primal necessity of subdivision. 
Food, he said, must be absorbed through the surface 
of the cell. When the diameter of a cell is doubled, 
its surface becomes four times as great as before, 
but its volume becomes eight times as great. The 
food- traffic will therefore be twice as heavy as 
before, and may unduly strain the consistency 
of the surface. If the eight-fold volume were 
subdivided into eight separate cells, the surface 
per volume would be the same as before, and 
the customary process of food-supply could be 
maintained. 

This argument supposes, of course, that enlarge- 
ment of volume is in itself an object towards which 
the natural processes tend. In view of the govern- 
ing activity of the nuclear matter it is more reason- 
able to suppose that the multiplication of nuclei is 
the governing tendency. 

Each nucleus is a centre of life, the seat of some 
intelligent activity which we, being so far removed 
from it in the scale of intelligence, can only dimly 
appreciate. This intelligence, we may well believe, 
is fitted for dealing with certain kinds of influences 
and impulses, provided by the medium in which it 
lives. It can deal with them at a certain rate. If 
the impulses become too rapid, life becomes too 
" strenuous," and the working capacity of the 
" central exchange " is overstrained. An undue 



122 BIRTH 

increase in volume not only increases the points of 
contact with the outer world beyond a certain 
limit. It also, and much more largely, increases 
the amount of second-class matter to be superin- 
tended. If, then, the food-supply becomes too 
abundant, and growth too rapid, the nucleus divides, 
and the line of cleavage, after beginning among the 
innermost arcana of vitality, runs through the outer 
courts of life, emerging into the visible day and 
taking the remaining matter in the lump, much as 
two heirs, after having carefully sorted and divided 
the jewelry and family heirlooms, might lump the 
remaining property together and take their halves 
at random. 

Life and experience are thereby multiplied and 
varied. But a danger then arises, and has to be 
guarded against. It is that in the extreme varia- 
tion of life thus produced there may be a deviation 
from the best tradition, that inherited tradition of 
customary processes which is the outcome of long 
ages of ancestral experience. This danger is mini- 
mised by the converse process of conjugation. In 
this process, certain vital parts of each cell combine 
together and give rise to new nuclei, and thus to 
new individuals. 

From the point of view advanced in this book, it 
is evident that we have to deal with what, in short, 
we might style the division and combination of 
souls. For, according to our view, all cells are 



DIVISIBILITY OF- CONSCIOUSNESS I 23 

living beings, which may or may not combine to 
form beings of a higher order. And the most 
essential, vital, directive parts of each cell con- 
stitute its soul. This soul is withdrawn from the 
cell when it " dies," and its subsequent fate is what 
we have to determine, if we can. 

Now the question arises : Can a soul split in two ? 
And this is matched by the converse question : Can 
two souls become merged into one ? 

If, as we have all along assumed, all living things 
are linked together through some superior centre 
(or, in the last resort, through the universal centre), 
if, in fact, all life is ultimately One, then there is 
no difficulty in assuming any number and variety of 
different combinations and dispersals of the ultimate 
infinitesimal units of life. But we have really 
nothing to do with these. We have in practice to 
deal with very complex combinations of them, with 
very highly organised and differentiated systems, 
and must ask ourselves whether such duplication of 
contents of consciousness as we actually observe is 
deducible from our general premises, or, at least, 
not inconsistent with them. 

Reverting to our diagram of an individual (Fig. 3, 
p. 104), we need only suppose that the central lines of 
each plastid bundle are capable of splitting along 
their lengths, beginning at the " infinitesimal " end. 
The result in a simple case is represented by Fig. 4, 
where B and C are two similar individuals formed 



124 



BIRTH 



by simple fission. Conjugation would then be 
represented by the converse process. The more 
central lines would coalesce, and liberate the re- 
mainder from their allegiance. The knot at A 
would mean that there is a unifying principle which 
tends to keep the species moving along the same 
general lines of development. This unifying knot 




Fig. 4. 



at A also brings about the " epidemic of conjuga- 
tion" periodically. In a multicellular individual it 
represents the soul, not of the cell or the species, 
but of the whole organism. In the metazoa or 
higher organisms generally, the process is more 
complex. It is a process of fission, conjugation, and 
a second fission. Briefly, it consists in this. 



GEEM-CELLS I 2 5 

Specially equipped cells (called germ-cells) are 
developed by each organism, whose function it is to 
hand on the inherited tradition. These germ-cells 
are of two kinds, male and female, and while in 
most plants and in some of the lower animals both 
kinds are developed in the same individual, in the 
higher animals each kind is only developed by its 
appropriate sex. Millions of these are constantly 
produced, and only an insignificant proportion of 
them ever fulfil their appropriate function. To do 
this, it is necessary that a male germ-cell should 
reach a female germ-cell, that their nuclei should 
fuse, and give rise to a new nucleus capable of 
cleavage. When this happens, a new individual of 
the same species is gradually developed by the sub- 
division and multiplication of the original cell and 
the differentiation of the different groups of cells 
into organs. 

The process thus briefly sketched raises quite a 
number of important questions. Have the germ- 
cells, male or female, any souls ? And if so, of 
what order ? What relation have these souls to 
that of the individual ? What becomes of the souls 
of the germ-cells when they die without fulfilling 
their function ? What happens when they do fulfil 
their appropriate function ? 

The simplest way of dealing with these ques- 
tions will be to answer them, so to speak, 
dogmatically, and then to proceed at leisure 



126 BIRTH 

to justify the answers given. These, then, are 
the answers : — 

All germ-cells, like other cells, have souls. Their 
souls differ materially, but not fundamentally, from 
other cells of the body, in two main particulars. 
They are composed of infinitesimal monads derived 
from the whole of the body, instead of being chiefly 
associated with a single organ (they are, so to 
speak, condensed extracts of the whole individual). 
And, secondly, they are one-sided, asymmetrical, or 
incomplete. They are incomplete structurally, as 
shown by their possessing only half the usual num- 
ber of chromosomes (see p. 72). They are, there- 
fore, incapable of spontaneous division or of separate 
growth. 

When the germ-cells die, with their mission un- 
fulfilled, their souls return to the organism whence 
they came. 

When two germ-cells meet and merge, their 
souls are liberated from their parent organisms. 
The " lines " which constitute them intertwine, 
swing loose from the two parent groups, and form 
a new knot on a level with the souls of the parent 
individuals. At that moment, in a flash of rapture, 
a new soul is conceived and enters the world in 
Avhich its two parents move. 

This view brings out the essential similarity of 
the process of reproduction in all forms of life. In 
both protozoa and metazoa there is an alternation 



DEVELOPMENT 127 

of division and conjugation. The only difference is 
that whereas in the protozoa fission or cell-division 
implies an actual separation of the cells, in the 
metazoa the divided cells continue in contact, and 
support each other by a division of labour and by 
mutual service. 

This mutual service is the governing principle of 
the life of the metazoon from its earliest stages. 
What exactly is the guiding principle of the de- 
velopment of the embryonic being into its state of 
maturity is the most profound problem of biology. 
After reviewing the various theories hitherto pro- 
pounded, Wilson says x : — 

" The truth is that an explanation of development 
is at present beyond our reach. The controversy be- 
tween pre-formation and epigenesis has now arrived 
at a stage where it has little meaning apart from 
the general problem of physical causality. What we 
know is that a specific kind of living substance, de- 
rived from the parent, tends to run through a specific 
cycle of changes during which it transforms itself into 
a body like that of which it formed a part ; and we 
are able to study with greater or less precision the 
mechanism by which that transformation is effected 
and the conditions under which it takes place. But 
despite all our theories we no more know how the 
organisation of the germ-cell involves the properties 
of the adult body than we know how the properties 

1 " The Cell," p. 433. 



128 BIRTH 

of hydrogen and oxygen involve those of water. 
So long as the chemist and physicist are unable to 
solve so simple a problem of physical causality as 
this, the embryologist may well be content to re- 
serve his judgment on a problem a hundred-fold 
more complex." 

Our view of the problem is that it is not a ques- 
tion of " physical causality " at all, and that no 
physical theory can, in the nature of things, ever 
shed any light on the real problem of development. 
The course of development is so evidently governed 
by psychological rather than physical factors that 
only the prevailing materialism of biology can 
account for this not being acknowledged long ago. 
We have all along been driven to suppose that some 
part of the memory of the individual is embodied in 
every cell of the body, and we may well assume 
that such a crisis as the merging of two germ-cells 
stimulates and exalts the memories of both, and 
throws into strong relief all that they have in 
common. This common ground will be a closer 
approach to the average memory of the species than 
each memory would be when taken separately. 
For lack of an insight into the true cause of de- 
velopment, biologists have invented a word which, 
at all events, embodies the unknown factor deter- 
mining the idiosyncrasies of each species. The 
word is " idioplasm," and it means " the substance, 
now generally identified with chromatin, which by 



HEREDITY 1 29 

its inherent organisation involves the characteristics 
of the species." l In short, it is the cause which, 
by some inherent cause, causes — the effect observed. 
Wilson says : 2 — 

" The second question, regarding the historical 
origin of the idioplasm, brings us to the side of the 
evolutionists. The idioplasm of every species has 
been derived, as we must believe, by the modifica- 
tion of a pre-existing idioplasm through variation, 
and the survival of the fittest. Whether these 
variations first arise in the idioplasm of the germ- 
cells, as Weismann maintains, or whether they may 
arise in the body-cells and then be reflected back 
upon the idioplasm, is a question to which the study 
of the cell has thus far given no certain answer. 
Whatever position we take on this question, the 
same difficulty is encountered ; namely, the origin of 
that co-ordinated fitness, that power of active adjust- 
ment between internal and external relations, which, 
as so many eminent biological thinkers have in- 
sisted, overshadows every manifestation of life. The 
nature and origin of this powjr is the fundamental 
problem of biology. When, after removing the lens 
of the eye in the larval salamander, we see it restored 
in perfect and typical form by regeneration from 
the posterior layer of the iris, we behold an adap- 
tive response to changed conditions of which the 
organism can have had no antecedent experience 

1 Wilson's Glossary in " The Cell." 2 Ibid., p. 433. 

I 



130 BIRTH 

either ontogenetic or phylogenetic, and one of so 
marvellous a character that we are made to realise, 
as by a flash of light, how far we still are from a 
solution of this problem." 

Without attempting or pretending to give a com- 
plete solution of this difficult problem, we may point 
out that there is nothing inconceivable in a pro- 
found stirring of ancestral infra-world memories at 
the union of two germ-cells. As at the moment of 
death, so at the moment of conception, there is an 
exaltation of memory which surveys, with lightning- 
rapidity, a vast course of previous evolution. That 
memory becomes a directive influence, pointing out 
the future path, which must be parallel with the 
path already trodden. And so the incipient being 
rehearses during its early existence the stages 
through which the species passed in the course of 
its age-long evolution, and that remarkable corre- 
spondence between ontogenetic and phylogenetic 
development arises, that agreement between the 
life-history of the individual and that of the 
species, which Haeckel has done so much to make 
known, and from which he has drawn so many 
unwarranted conclusions. 



CHAPTER II 

LIFE AFTER DEATH 

Aee we prepared for a rational theory of the life 
after death ? 

The question seems a strange one. Is not this 
rational theory what the world has been striving 
for ages to attain to ? Does not this question of 
the after-life confront us whenever we think a few 
years or scores of years beyond our present life ? 
Is not the truth the best, the greatest, the most 
welcome ? 

What is the actual present-day attitude on the 
question ? Let us examine it dispassionately, with 
sole regard for accuracy and impartiality. 

In Europe and America we have two main 
attitudes, the (more or less orthodox) Christian 
attitude and the Materialistic attitude. The former 
controls most of those who are emotional rather 
than intellectual ; the latter controls the quasi- 
intellectual classes and a considerable proportion 
of the highly cultured. 

The Christian attitude towards immortal^ is 
difficult to state succinctty. It depends partly 
upon the form of Christianity professed, and partly 

x 3i 



132 LIFE AFTER DEATH 

upon personal disposition and the " private judg- 
ment." 

Broadly speaking, there is an assurance of personal 
survival, largely centred about the personality of the 
Founder of Christianity and based upon His re- 
surrection after crucifixion. There is a general 
belief hi a moral retribution, which in many cases 
takes the form of places of bliss and of punishment, 
as well as an intermediate place of purification. A 
final resurrection of all flesh and Judgment Day 
are also looked forward to, and in the more extreme 
forms we have the doctrines of eternal bliss and 
eternal punishment. 

Details of the life immediately following death 
are of the vaguest. In fact, the prevailing tendency 
is to avoid them carefully, to screen them from the 
play of reason, to veil them from the prying in- 
tellect, so as to avoid a conflict between the heart 
and the understanding, between faith and reason. 
The next world is peopled with angels and devils, 
among whom the departed soul finds it hard to hold 
its own, and cannot hope to do so unfortified by a 
fervent belief in the truths revealed by religion and 
the record of a good life on earth. 

To all this the materialistic attitude offers a blank 
negation. It professes to point out all the impossi- 
bilities and absurdities of the Christian attitude, and 
shows that the possibility of a future life without 
the brain is contradicted by every fact of nature. 



PRESENT CONTROVERSIES I 33 

It asserts the supreme right of the intellect to 
decide these questions, and attributes the contrary 
teachings of the religious bodies to a species of in- 
tellectual quackery, to the misuse of intellectual 
powers for the misguidance of the unintelligent 
masses. To this sweeping condemnation the 
Churches reply by denouncing the materialistic 
doctrines as immoral and anti-moral, as dangerous 
to the welfare of the community. This again is 
met by the plea of " material prosperity," of im- 
provements in sanitation and public health and the 
survival of infants — pleas which are met by pointing 
out a corresponding increase in criminal statistics. 

And so this controversy, which originated in a 
dispute concerning the future life, draws its trail 
across the whole field of social and civil activity. 
But the outcome of it all has been to drive the 
question of survival more and more into the back- 
waters of " practical politics." In the tussle between 
the emotions and the intellect the latter has proved 
the stronger, and to-day the world is governed 
precisely as it would be if no future life existed, 
except that care is taken to respect the feelings of 
people who have strong convictions to the contrary, 
just as some people have strong convictions con- 
cerning vaccination. It is not the fact of a future 
life that is thus acknowledged, but solely the opinion 
of those who believe in it. 

That being the actual state of things, the advent 



134 LIFE AFTER DEATH 

of a scientific demonstration of a future life may be 
expected to effect a very radical alteration in our 
public policy. But that alteration will never take 
place unless there is a scientific demonstration. 
Humanity is not, after toiling wearily up the hill 
into the sunlight, going to sink back into a dark 
and misty valley. After ousting all the hierarchies 
from every civilised government, after depriving 
them of nearly every shred of control over the 
affairs of this world, it is not going to take their 
word on any subject as final. If the future world 
is to be recognised in this it will have to be more 
properly accredited. It will have to give an account 
of itself, and submit to cross-examination. If it 
fails to do so it will not get a hearing, and matters 
will go on as they are. Humanity is too busy with 
its appointed tasks to trouble about chimeras. After 
all, what can you do to a man who gives up all hope 
of a future life ? He is quite impervious to threats 
of future retribution, and will put his simple denial 
in the balance against your simple assertion that 
such awaits him. Or if, instead of your simple 
assertion, you quote your revealed Scriptures, your 
authorities, your edicts, and dogmas, he will answer 
you with his universal experience, his scientific 
method, his canons of induction, and point out 
countless cases where the latter have prevailed over 
the former. 

History will repeat itself. Inductive science 



THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDE I 3 5 

found theology in possession of this world, govern- 
ing all things, interpreting nature in accordance 
with revelation, and manipulating the facts of 
geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, and chrono- 
logy to make them fit into a traditional scheme 
which was not even consistent with itself. 

From this territory theology has been ruthlessly 
evicted. The visible world being henceforth closed 
to it, it has taken refuge in the invisible world, 
where it feels free to make what declarations it 
likes. And that invisible world continues to be 
the " home " towards which the weary heart turns 
from a world that has become indeed clean and 
bright and sanitary, but utterly hopeless and empty, 
if not unjust and cruel. 

For the things of this world are not enough. 
From the corpse and the chamber of death we turn 
with loathing, unless reverence or affection or the 
expectation of future reunion enable us to overcome 
the natural feeling of repugnance. We refuse to 
recognise our likeness in that which lies there 
motionless before us. We repudiate it and disown 
it. We feel instinctively that that cannot be the 
end, though a thousand sciences may thunder it 
into our ear. For those whom the sweet solace of 
religion can reach in that hour of doubt and bereave- 
ment it is well. Let us tenderly respect their self- 
abandonment and rejoice in their child-like trust in 
an Almighty Father who governs everything for the 



136 LIFE AFTER DEATH 

best and will wipe away the tears from their 
eyes. 

It is not for such that this book is written. It 
is written for those who think, for that increasing 
majority of the human race in whom the claims of 
the intellect have become supreme, in whom the 
cravings of the heart are subordinate to that general 
sense of fairness and fitness which, for lack of a 
better word, we call Reason. They do not expect a 
special and individual Providence for themselves. 
If there is such, they want to share it with the 
whole human race. They want to balance their 
own good against that of their neighbour, and 
ascertain that the law they recognise, if extended 
over all humanity, will be fair and equitable to all. 
They will not allow any living man, or collection of 
men, to prescribe or dictate to them, out of some 
alleged authority, what is or is not true, knowing as 
they do that truth is a relative term, which varies 
from age to age, that truth is a function of two 
variables, reality and symbol, and that it changes 
as much with the latter as with the former. In 
other words, a truth which cannot be revised is 
no truth, just as an antiquated map is not a true 
map. A reality is expressed in certain symbols, 
chosen from the intellectual currency of the time of 
utterance. The strict correspondence between the 
reality and the symbolism is truth. The symbols 
may be words, written or spoken ; they may be 



THE EVOLUTION OF TRUTH 1 37 

pictures, tracings, images, or allegories. Their 
strict correspondence to the reality is only approxi- 
mate, just as even a plaster cast ceases to represent 
the outline 'precisely once we come down to mole- 
cular dimensions. The symbols, only approximate 
at best, change in the course of time. What the 
Ancients called the OrMs Terrarum we call the 
globe. We have discarded their empyreans and 
epicycles as symbols which have lost all intelli- 
gible meaning, i.e. all relation to reality. The very 
firmament has become the most infirm and changfe- 
able of things, the most subtle and mobile realm of 
ether. There is hardly a word in our present-day 
language whose precise use and meaning are more 
than four or five centuries old. And even if two 
people use the same word, and give it the same 
synonyms, we have no criterion which would en- 
able us to tell whether they attached to it precisely 
the same meaning. 

No, in present-day thought there is no room for 
dogma, except as a useful temporary assumption. 
Every truth must be regarded, not as a thing to 
stand in cetemum, but as a challenge, an obstacle 
to freedom, at best a solid prop capable of 
withstanding a strain not to exceed a certain 
maximum. 

It is in this spirit that science will, if at all, ap- 
proach the problem of immortality. And whatever 
ground it effectively occupies will therewith be irre- 



138 LIFE AFTER DEATH 

vocably and finally withdrawn from the control of 
dogmatism. 

The masterful hand of the conqueror will imme- 
diately make itself felt. There will be no room for 
parleys and reticences and obscurities, any more 
than in physiology or surgery. Everything must 
be faced, and the examination must be as thorough 
as a serious medical examination. The task may be 
far from agreeable. It may have its own dangers 
and disillusionments and pitfalls. But it must be 
faced some time, and can only be faced in the spirit 
of candid, fearless, painstaking inquiry, to which 
everything is equally clean and holy and worthy of 
respect, every detail of equal interest, and only one 
thing unclean and abominable — falsehood. 

In the pursuit of that inquiry it may happen — 
and most likely will happen — that the problem 
appears the more complex the further we pursue it. 
Before the days of the microscope, the hair on the 
leaf and the grain of pollen on the stamen were 
about the smallest things we knew, and the simplest. 
To-day, both of these are great and complicated 
structures, capable of analysis into a thousand 
smaller elements, and still we are far from having 
attained to simple elements from which everything 
may be theoretically or practically reconstructed. 
Moreover, in those early days things appeared 
simpler than they do now. Meat was either clean 
or unclean, men were righteous or unrighteous, 



UNEXPECTED COMPLEXITIES I 39 

gentle or simple, born to everlasting bliss or eternal 
damnation ; there were but seven planets and a few 
thousand stars fixed in a crystal vault. Science 
has found the reality to be quite different. Animal 
species are more difficult to classify noAv than in 
the days of Deuteronomy. Man's righteousness is 
judged largely by his bail and his counsel ; his gen- 
tility is a matter of money or education ; his future 
fate has ceased to interest any but himself, and even 
himself it preoccupies little. The list of planets 
has expanded to many hundreds, and the approxi- 
mate number of fixed stars to a hundred million, 
contained within a vast space beyond which other 
and vaster spaces stretch into infinity, harbouring 
infinite possibilities of further existence. 

When the scouts of science advance into the 
unseen world of our future life, they will in all 
probability meet with a similar expansion of detail 
and enrichment of experience. Actual facts of that 
world will refuse to fit themselves into our home- 
made schemes of things. Our schemes will have to 
be revised and made more elastic. What appears 
to us utter simplicity may turn out to be a bewil- 
dering complexity, just as a drop of stagnant water 
is seen to be the battle-ground of innumerable forms 
of life. 

We must not expect simplicity, neither must we 
expect finality. Even if Ave could survey the fate 
of a man we knew in this life for twenty years after 



140 LIFE AFTER DEATH 

his death, we might be no nearer to the solution 
of the problem of immortality properly so called, 
i.e. final or absolute immortality. The man himself 
might be in the same kind of doubt as to his ulti- 
mate fate as he was on this earth. It is quite 
conceivable that the date of annihilation might be 
simply adjourned, that the future life we are looking 
for is but a reprieve. And yet we cannot but 
think that the safe crossing of one Kiver of Death 
may raise our courage for all subsequent crossings, 
if such be in store for us. 

If we admit the possibility of eventual annihila- 
tion, we must face another possibility also : it is 
what we might call the Greek idea of Hades, 
peopled by bloodless shades, capable of nothing but 
an aimless re-enactment of the chief scenes of their 
earth-life. It is the " poor ghost " idea, the larva, 
the shell, the helpless, haunting phantom, which 
restlessly seeks rest, and welcomes annihilation at 
the last. 

All these various possibilities confront us, and 
how shall we choose between them ? What Castor 
and Pollux shall be our guiding-stars, what magnetic 
needle shall point to a changeless pole ? 

The answer is this : We shall follow up each 
clue, each alternative possibility, and follow farthest 
along the likeliest path. We shall make as little 
breaking-away as possible from " the solid ground 
of nature." One of our guides shall be the observed 



GUIDING PRINCIPLES 141 

continuity of natural phenomena, expressed in the 
generalisation, Natura non facit solium. We have 
really more material at hand than is currently 
realised. We have a number of " curves " (express- 
ing natural laws) which admit of " extrapolation," 
of prolongation into the unknown. Also, science 
deals already with several invisible worlds, any one 
of which may become visible to us in our next life. 
Besides the principle of continuity, we have also 
what may be called the principle of value. It is 
that the present, the facts of to-day, the world we 
live in, have a permanent and definite value in the 
whole scheme of the universe ; that they are inter- 
connected with every other event or fact, past, 
present, and to come ; that nowhere is there a boun- 
dary-wai; beyond which no ripple or echo of our 
events can penetrate. This means much. Among 
other things, it means that we are here and now in 
touch with the conditions of the future life, and 
that the future world and its denizens are here and 
now in touch with us, consciously or unconsciously. 
That being so, we have one supreme test of the truth 
of any theory we may formulate. It must be ex- 
tended to the whole world as far as we know it, to 
every geological era, to every form of life, and must 
not lead to absurdities and inconsistencies. In fact, 
it must be thought out to the end, in accordance with 
all the knowledge hitherto accumulated. This, it 
may be safely said, has never been done before, nor 



142 LIFE AFTER DEATH 

can it here be attempted, except in general outline. 
But the way is clearly marked out for us. The light 
is not so dim but that we can see it, and it only re- 
mains to tread the path courageously, and advance 
as far as our strength will carry us. 

Let us examine some of the popular notions of a 
future life, and see at what point their absurdity or 
inconsistency arises. 

Many of these regard the future life as a mere 
continuation of this. The Red Indian hunting in 
his familiar prairies, the Goth fighting his battles 
daily in Valhalla give us examples of such concep- 
tions. If they are consistently thought out, they 
mean organisms resembling those of the earth-life, 
with clothes and weapons to match. But these, be 
it remembered, are adapted to life on the surface 
of this earth, and to nothing else. Transplanted 
into any other place, they will fit as ill as a key in 
the wrong lock. 

Other beliefs adopt the idea of a glorified earthly 
existence on a glorified earth, or in a place resem- 
bling something on earth to which a special glory or 
majesty is attached. Thus we get the Elysian fields, 
the Mohammedan paradise, the New Jerusalem. All 
these fall to pieces on the slightest touch of analysis. 
None of them bear thinking out. Either they are 
framed on the laws which govern this world (as 
regards cohesion, gravitation, and the various other 
natural forces), in which case they become mere 



POPULAR NOTIONS 143 

repetitions of the earth; or these laws are only 
partially observed, in which case they become quite 
unthinkable monstrosities; or the laws are quite 
different, in which case we can apply no human 
standards of existence or pursuits whatever. Yet 
human or semi-human forms are postulated in each 
case. 

Nearly all the " higher " views of future existence 
assume a much greater effect of divine ruling in 
the next world than in this. God is more visible, 
more approachable, more supreme there than here. 
For this, again, we have no warrant of any kind. 
A world outside of God is unthinkable. It would 
simply be another God, and there is no room for 
two Universal Centres in a thinkable universe. 

Our views, vague as they have hitherto been, 
have been largely coloured by anthropomorphic 
images. The pagan idea of celestial potentates, 
who must be praised and conciliated, finds no room 
in a more enlightened theology. What we can 
reasonably postulate is just this : that the next 
world will be under the same beneficent Absolute 
Rule as this — no more and no less — and that its 
type of existence will be one which admits of the 
utilisation of experiences acquired in this life, and 
the further development of faculties which are only 
nascent in the highest types evolved in earth-life. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SOUL-BODY 

The self-determining action of the human individual 
does not contradict the law of the conservation of 
energy, as Sir Oliver Lodge has shown in " Life and 
Matter." l The will exerts a directive action, and such 
directive action involves little or no expenditure of 
energy. The cushion of the billiard-table expends 
no energy in deflecting a billiard-ball, nor does the 
grass expend energy on making a foot-ball rebound. 
On the contrary, it absorbs energy from the ball. 

When, however, we come to a " voluntary " deter- 
mination of direction, there arises the necessity of 
an expenditure of energy on the instrument by 
which this direction is effected. By slightly turning 
a bat or a tennis-racquet this way or that we can 
produce a large difference in the direction in which 
a ball will travel after impact. By pulling a trigger, 
we can liberate a large amount of energy, from 
which, if we please, we can recover the energy we 
spent on pulling the trigger. We can make the 
ratio of the two amounts of energy as great as we 
please. We can make the energy necessary to 

1 Published by Williams & Norgate, London, 1905, 

*44 



THE SOUL-BODY 1 45 

liberate the store of energy one-millionth of the 
latter, or one-billionth, or infinitesimal. Every act 
of our muscles is some " pulling of the trigger," 
some influence of the will upon nerve structures, 
or other structures will govern the storing and 
liberation of energy. If these " triggers " were 
removed from the body, the body would be as 
" dead " and defenceless as an army from whose 
guns all the triggers had been removed. 

Whether these triggers form a visible structure 
of the cell we may leave, for the present, an open 
question. For ought we know, they may be 
Darwin's " gemmules," which, however, are supposed 
to be ultra- visible. Also, they may be contained, 
perhaps, in nerve cells only. We know that these 
are among the most important structures of the 
body, and that they are the first to lose their 
power of subdivision in the adult. But whatever 
they are, they must, according to our fundamental 
assumptions, be material 'particles or structures, i.e. 
living beings of a low dimensional scale, trained, 
perhaps, for joint and harmonious action through 
a prolonged period of co-operation. These particles 
constitute the soul-body, or, briefly, the soul of the 
individual. Their structure is further differentiated, 
some parts being as much more vital than the 
rest as the particle as a whole is more vital than 
the rest of the body. These most vital of particles 
we may take as constituting the " spirit." 

K 



146 THE SOUL-BODY 

It will be convenient to have a name for the 
constituent particles of the soul-body. By analogy 
with a number of biological terms (such as chromo- 
mere) we will call them psychomeres (soul-particles). 
They may be somewhat analogous, or possibly 
identical, with Weismann's " biophores." Wilson 
says l : " The starting point of his [Weismann's] 
theory is the hypothesis of De Vries that the 
chromatin is a congeries or colony of invisible 
self-propagating vital units or biophores some- 
what like Darwin's ' gemmules/ each of which has 
the power of determining the development of a 
particular quality. Weismann conceives these units 
as aggregated to form units of a higher order 
known as ' determinants,' which in turn are grouped 
to form ' ids,' each of which, for reasons that need 
not here be specified, is assumed to possess the 
complete architecture of the germ-plasm charac- 
teristic of the species. The ' ids ' finally, which 
are identified with the visible chromatin granules, 
are arranged in linear series to form ' idants ' or 
chromosomes. It is assumed further that the ' ids ' 
differ slightly in a manner corresponding with the 
individual variations of the species, each chromo- 
some therefore being a particular group of slightly 
different germ-plasms, and differing qualitatively 
from all the others." 

This view of the great German biologist is a good 

1 " The Cell," p. 245. 



PSYCHOMERES 147 

instance of the tendency towards almost indefinite 
subdivision and grouping. There would be no 
objection to identifying our " psychomeres " with 
his " invisible self- propagating vital units called 
biophores" but for the fact that the chromatin of 
the nucleus is almost certainly not the only really 
vital part of the cell. The " cytoplasm " or outer 
substance most likely contains vital centres also, 
though these may be incapable of " self-propaga- 
tion," and our psychomeres, though somewhat con- 
centrated in the chromatin, must be diffusely 
disseminated all through the cell. 

Another observation which somewhat discredits 
the chromatin as the sole bearer of vitality is that 
" centrosomes " may arise cle novo from either the 
cytoplasmic or the nuclear substance, and may play 
the usual role (whatever that may be) in mitosis. 1 
Now this means, not that the new centre of aggre- 
gation arises out of an undifferentiated mass by 
spontaneous generation, but that the existing centre, 
instead of being capable of demonstration by means 
of dyes, is invisible. The obvious lesson is that we 
cannot reasonably expect to see the psychomeres. 
They may possibly be discovered sometime, and the 
quest for them should prove extremely fascinating, 
but for the present we must leave the question of 
their visibility open. 

Failing an ocular examination, we must endeavour 

1 Wilson, " The Cell," p. 309. 



148 THE SOUL-BODY 

in some other way to arrive at a rough idea of their 
physical properties. Let us place their total weight, 
at a guess, at one -millionth of the entire body. 
The nuclear matter is about one-thousandth, so that 
we are well below that proportion, as we ought to 
be, after all that has been said. Each cell contains, 
on the average, 1,000,000,000 atoms, so that 1000 
atoms, on the average, of each cell, would go to 
make up psychomeres, and the total number of 
atoms in these psychomeres would be something 
like 10 19 (ten trillions). Their aggregate weight 
would be 50 milligrams, or about iths of a grain, 
or the weight of ten postage-stamps. That would 
be the weight of a human soul ! 

We must next inquire about their state of aggre- 
gation. In the physical theory of ionisation and 
condensation we have become familiar with the fact 
that the smallest charged particles are the most 
effective promoters of condensation. In fact, it 
would suffice to extract a very small proportion of 
the innumerable electrons within the body to bring 
about a vigorous condensation in the moist air 
around it. Noav growth is, to some extent, a phe- 
nomenon of condensation. It is eminently so in 
the case of plants, which derive the bulk of their 
tissue from the carbon dioxide gas of the air. We 
have reason, therefore, to expect that some, at least, 
of the psychomeres will resemble electrons, or groups 
of electrons, rather than atoms. But others may be 



EXTE ACTION OF THE PSYCHOMERES 1 49 

complex molecular groups with abnormal electric 
properties. That their electric properties are ab- 
normal, i.e. somewhat different from those of the 
molecules of " dead " matter, is rendered probable 
by the peculiar chemical reactions to which many 
of them give rise, reactions which are at the root of 
the formation of the more complex " organic " com- 
pounds. 

Could we extract all the psychomeres from an 
adult human body, and leave them in the same 
mutual positions as before, we should have a kind 
of gaseous body filling the familiar outline. But 
the tenuity of the gaseous body would be a thou- 
sand times greater than that of air. It would, in 
fact, represent a moderate vacuum. If now its 
size were reduced so that, instead of some five feet, 
it were only six inches high, and the other dimen- 
sions in proportion, it would have just the density 
of air, and would float freely in it, without any 
tendency to either rise or fall. 

In its ordinary form, at which it represents a 
vacuum of f mm. of mercury, it would float upwards 
like a balloon, and would not attain its proper level 
until it had risen some 35 miles into the air, and 
arrived at or near the upper limit of the atmosphere. 

These calculations suppose, of course, that the air 
is excluded from the space between the psycho- 
meres. There is, as a matter of fact, no valid 
reason why it should not be. What prevents the 



I50 THE SOUL-BODY 

free passage of air through our physical bodies ? 
Nothing but the cohesion of the tissues. And what 
is this cohesion ? We do not know, but as every- 
thing consists of discrete particles, it must be some 
action between these particles, exerted across inter- 
vening space. We only know of three such actions : 
gravitational, electrostatic, and magnetic (electro- 
dynamic). Of these three, gravitational and mag- 
netic force are too feeble to account for the actual 
cohesive force observed. There remains electro- 
static attraction as the only explanation, and that is 
the very force with which our psychomeres are, ex 
hypothesi, most richly endowed. If, therefore, the 
soul-body has a suitable distribution of electrons, it 
may possess any desired amount of cohesion and 
defensive power, without the necessity of having 
the solidity of our physical bodies. 

Now suppose that what we call death consists in 
just this : the psychomeres are withdrawn from the 
body ; the soul which they constitute continues its 
life without the ballast it has just discarded. 

What should we naturally expect to follow ? 

The physical body will be deprived of its direc- 
tive elements. Each cell will fall a victim to 
whatever other directive influences are most power- 
ful. The processes of transpiration and evaporation 
will go on unchecked. The cell-life will continue 
for a little while on the lower planes, but the 
cell-community will break up. The power of 



WHAT HAPPENS AT DEATH I 5 I 

growth and nutrition will be lost. Expenditure 
will exceed income a thousand-fold. There will be 
an aimless running down of the machinery, un- 
balanced by a new winding up. Then there will 
be stagnation and disintegration. If the body is 
hermetically sealed up, there will be a very gradual 
chemical and physical disintegration. If the corpse 
is embalmed, much of that will be prevented. If it 
is cremated, the inevitable process of disintegration 
will be accelerated very considerably. And lastly, 
if the body is buried, " earth to earth," the work of 
disintegration will be taken in hand largely by 
micro-organisms, ever ready and eager to utilise 
cast-off organic material and perform the necessary 
work of disinfection and sanitation. Whatever 
the process may be, the end is the same. The 
cast-off organism goes the way of all the material 
which the soul pressed into its service in the course 
of its earthly life, and cast off again. It becomes of 
no more value than cast-off clothing, and hair and 
nails, and air breathed out from the lungs, and all 
the other cUbris and wastage of the complex organic 
machine. 

Not so the soul. Liberated from a slow and 
clumsy engine of physical activity, it finds itself 
free, unharnessed, unembarrassed. The most vital 
parts of the organism are intact. The memories 
and faculties are keen and alert. There is a sense 
of adventure, of expectancy, of possibilities but 



152 THE SOUL-BODY 

vaguely felt, of new faculties hardly yet awakened. 
The community of intelligences is more closely 
knit than ever. Diseased or deformed conditions 
can be immediately rectified through the greater 
power of readjustment of part to part. But the 
soul will soon learn to adapt itself to the new con- 
ditions of its existence. What these conditions are 
we cannot readily discover, but we can make some 
guesses likely to be near the truth. In doing so, 
we must be guided by the known laws of the 
physical world and by the most authentic informa- 
tion which has yet been obtained with regard to 
the details of the next life. 

And firstly, we must consider a little further the 
process of the withdrawal of the psychomeres from 
the organism ; in other words, the separation of the 
soul from the body at death. 

How is this effected ? And what time is required 
for the process ? 

We have assumed, with some reason, that the 
psychomeres are material aggregates varying from 
electronic to molecular dimensions, and endowed 
with a marked electric polarity. These will have 
to assemble from the interior of every cell, and will 
have to pass through the cell walls and membranes 
of all grades of texture and consistency. But that 
offers no formidable obstacle. It means simply a 
variation of the process by which all nutrition and 
metabolism is effected. It proceeds by transpiration 



THE PROCESS OF SEPARATION 153 

and diffusion. Only the roles of the chief actors 
are reversed. The host, instead of receiving his 
guests, bids thern adieu and departs. The whole 
process need not take more than a few minutes. 
When chloroform is breathed into the lungs, it is 
diffused through every cell in the body in about 
seven minutes. And yet chloroform consists of 
heavy and bulky molecules, each of which contains 
one atom of carbon, one of hydrogen, and three of 
chlorine. That all the psychomeres should act on 
a common impulse is not surprising. They are 
doing that all the time, waking and sleeping. The 
directive agents of our organism are ceaselessly 
active, and all working towards the same end, the 
efficiency of the machine at the disposal of the 
commanding intelligence. The sense of solidarity 
is strongly developed. In disease especially the 
co-operation of the various directive agencies or 
psychomeres is most marked. Their activity is 
raised throughout the body. They are so busy 
trying to repair the machine that we feel a sense 
of oppression, of disturbance, uneasiness, or pain. 
Little leisure is left for the ordinary activities. In 
fevers and all diseases which threaten the invasion 
of a rival power in the shape of some species of 
hostile microbes, the police and territorial armies go 
forth to battle for dear life, and the raging battle 
may be read in the rising mercury of the clinical 
thermometer. A large proportion of the psycho- 



154 THE SOUL-BODY 

meres, in all likelihood, sally forth from their 
appropriate cells to fight the enemy, leaving the 
cells to carry on a vegetative existence until their 
victorious return. 

But it may happen that the fortunes of war go 
against the gallant defenders, that the strategic 
positions have to be abandoned one by one. The 
structures laboriously built up become untenable. 
The home armies withdraw to the citadels, and 
when all is lost, prepare to leave with the honours 
of war. The cells, thus forsaken, indulge perhaps 
in an ineffectual and blind struggle on their own 
account, each one for itself, much as the guerilla 
warriors of a beaten nation might endeavour to 
harass its conquerors. But the home forces know 
when the day is lost. They gradually withdraw 
from the stricken field, knowing that there will be 
plenty of work for their valour elsewhere. And so 
they take leave, compact and undiminished and 
indestructible, to go where their higher destiny 
awaits them. 

Imagine the psychomeres, then, withdrawn from 
the body, and floating in the air, free to trace out 
what form they please. If, in the earthy state, the 
movements were determined by the central will, 
and movements often repeated became habits, and 
generated features, how much more will this be the 
case when the ballast is got rid of! We may 
imagine some surgings or oscillations before the 



THE MOMENT AFTER 155 

new equilibrium is attained. This equilibrium will 
be governed by the acquired characters of the 
individual psychomeres and by the requirements of 
the new world in which the soul is to live. Those 
groups which before were concerned in producing 
motion (chiefly the legs) will now tend to produce 
motion in the new world. Each group of psycho- 
meres will endeavour to carry out its function in 
the new life on somewhat similar lines as before. 
Possibly, the outline of the earth-body may be 
retained for some time, and if there is any acquisi- 
tion of new matter, that may go towards forming 
about the soul-body a semblance of drapery, that 
being, in civilised beings, almost as powerful an 
instinct as any other. But as time passes, we may 
well suppose that the earth memories are gradually 
modified, that the gaze is directed upward instead 
of downward, and that the soul takes its departure 
from the earth-scene, never more to return to it. 

If, on the other hand, the earth-memories are 
difficult to shake off, the soul will cling, more or 
less permanently, to the surface of the earth, will 
strive to retain its accustomed outline and char- 
acteristics, and will attach itself to some object or 
locality where it is comparatively free from dis- 
turbance. 

What kinds of disturbance has it to fear ? Can 
a soul be cut, or shot, or split in two, or exploded ? 
These questions are not so difficult to answer as 



156 THE SOUL-BODY 

they seem. Of course a sword or knife can cut 
through a soul-body, but the soul-body would be 
little, if any, the worse for it, any more than a 
swarm of bees would. An explosion might have 
more of an effect. It might scatter the psychomeres 
so far apart that they could only with difficulty, 
and considerable delay, be reassembled. But the 
telepathic link between them, aided by electrostatic 
forces, would no doubt heal the wound before long. 
A soul-body is practically invulnerable by human 
means. 

Another question arises concerning the soul- 
bodies of cripples, and persons deprived by disease 
of the use of some organ. The answer here is two- 
fold. In the first place, the organ or limb thus 
lost may not be necessary in the new state, in which 
case it will not be formed. If it is necessary, the 
superior liberty of configuration possessed by the 
soul-body will easily supply it. The tradition of 
the organ is there, at all events, and this can be 
strengthened in various ways, as will be seen 
later on. 

The natural form best adapted to motion in air 
will be something resembling a fish rather than a 
human being. For we must remember that the 
soul-body is more of the density of air than of that 
of water or earth. It is, therefore, peculiarly appro- 
priate that the early Christians, profoundly con- 
vinced of the immortality of the soul, should have 



THE SHAPE OF THE SOUL 157 

chosen a fish, IX0Y2, as the symbol of their 
faith. Recent researches on navigable balloons have 
brought out the fact that an elongated shape which 
is broad in front and narrow behind offers the least 
resistance to motion through a fluid. The shape 
of birds is also based on this principle, but since 
they are a good deal heavier than the air they 
displace, they require wings wherewith to produce 
the necessary upward impulse. 

The fish moves not so much by means of its 
fins — these are only steadying and steering devices 
— as by means of its tail and the undulatory motions 
of its whole body. An eel can move rapidly through 
water, with practically no fins at all. The principle 
is somewhat the same as that which governs the 
motion of a gimlet through a piece of wood. If, 
therefore, the soul-body, discarding its superfluous 
habits with its useless ballast-body, adapts itself 
straightway to its new environment, it will take the 
shape of a fish, or rather a flame. It will, like the 
spirit at the Pentecost, become a tongue of fire ! 
If it hovers about a fairy bush, such as the west 
of Ireland can tell of, that bush will become a 
burning bush such as Moses saw. If of great size, 
the soul-body may even appear as a pillar of cloud 
by day, and a pillar of fire by night. On a 
smaller scale, it may represent a will-o'-the-wisp 
and the flitting fairy -lights which so often accom- 
pany supernormal phenomena. 



158 THE SOUL-BODY 

Its transit through the air may be extremely 
rapid. It only depends upon the energy available 
within it, and, besides the end-on method of pro- 
pulsion which we utilise in the guidable balloon, it 
may be endowed with a motion resembling that of 
vortex rings, which traverse the air rapidly without 
any risk of losing their coherence or identity. 

Whoever watches a swarm of midges dancing in 
the twilight must have been struck with their 
cohesion. They attach themselves to some bush 
or elevated object and, although in rapid motion, 
appear to keep that connection through many 
vicissitudes. A gust of wind blows them aside, but 
the connection with the bush is unbroken, and they 
collect in its neighbourhood like a flag about a flag- 
staff. They keep their peculiar evolutions through 
it all. These evolutions no doubt serve some social 
purpose. They are made possible by the energy 
stored up in each midge. But the general effect 
is that of some busy living organism inhabiting the 
air, indifferent to the passage of a more ponderable 
body like our own, and behaving as one, though 
made up of some 10,000 independent units. Now, 
instead of 10,000 units,take 25,000,000,000,000,000 
units (the cells of our body) and from each of these 
extract one-millionth of its subtance. Is it any 
stretch of the imagination to suppose that these 
25,000,000,000,000,000 extracts may collaborate 
and behave like a single well-organised being, ani- 



EARTH-MEMORIES I 59 

mated by a master-impulse or swayed by a master- 
will ? After all, our bodies, even as they stand, are, 
according to the views now prevailing in physical 
science, mere swarms of molecules, atoms, and 
electrons, held together by electric and magnetic 
forces. If these can tread the earth and stem the 
water, why should not the aerial soul-body be equally 
stable in the gaseous state, and equally adapted to 
the life aerial ? 

If, for any reason, the earth memories of the 
soul should be reawakened, and become dominant, 
it can assume its accustomed earth-form, and any 
other form, even as in the Homeric poems the gods 
assumed the guise of various mortals. The psycho- 
meres need only resume their latent function of 
assimilating matter. The invisible soul-body will 
become, first, a fine mist, then a cloud, a tall pillar 
of filmy vapour, from which a complete form, 
moulded and clothed to suit the character assumed, 
would then emerge, to walk the earth as before for 
a little while, and to dissolve again into mist and 
become once more invisible. The inhabitants of 
the earth would then see a ghost, and be afraid, 
although, truth to tell, they would have more reason 
to be afraid of anything in a permanent earthly shape 
rather than of the materialised soul venturing back 
to its old haunts in a state of extremely unstable 
equilibrium, and ill equipped for any effective action, 
whether for good or ill. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE SOUL-WORLD 

Having arrived at a view of the soul-body which> 
even if not true, is certainly intelligible and not 
unreasonable, we must proceed to locate its where- 
abouts, its abode, its natural element. We have 
a larger choice of localities, divisible into : (a) 
Non-Euclidian space ; (b) Three-dimensional space, 
which may be (1) unconnected with the earth; or 
(2) connected with it. Let us discuss these in 
order. 

(a) Non-Euclidian Space. — It has been a favourite 
speculation in connection with supernormal pheno- 
mena to locate their cause in four-dimensional or 
other non-Euclidian space. Thus, Professor Zollner x 
explained a number of curious knot-tying experi- 
ments by reference to a fourth dimension, pointing 
out that what would be to us a knot incapable 
of resolution (such as a knot in a string forming 
a ring, or in a rubber band, or a ring cut out of 
a single piece of leather) might be tied and untied 
through the intermediary of a fourth-dimension 
movement, just as a flat loop would be unresolvable 

1 See his " Transcendental Physics." 

160 



THE SOUL-WOKLD l6l 

in two-dimensional space, but resolvable in our 
space. 

Now this line of argument, fascinating and 
alluring though it may be, is contrary to the 
principle of economy. It is best and safest to 
make the minimum of new assumptions, and to 
make, if possible, no assumptions contrary to our 
general experience. An explanation is, or should 
be, the reduction of an apparently abnormal pheno- 
menon to a group of known phenomena. A wholly 
novel cause is only assignable when a number of 
independent phenomena separately points towards 
it, and when no known cause is available. Now 
a fourth dimension is not in accordance with any 
experience elsewhere, and it is much more logical 
and scientific to assign even a complex cause con- 
sisting of known elements rather than a simpler 
cause containing an entirely new element. Zollner's 
experiences are equally explicable on the assumption 
that one solid can penetrate through the substance 
of another solid, a possibility which the molecular 
structure of even the most solid matter renders 
quite obvious. 

To assign supernormal phenomena to a fourth 
dimension is therefore almost as bad as to assign 
them to no cause at all, i.e. to declare them to 
be " miracles " pure and simple. Non-Euclidian 
space must be ruled out. It is the negation of 
space, and the negation of reason. 

L 



1 62 THE SOUL-WORLD 

(b) Three-dimensional Space. — In our Euclidian 
space, with, its three dimensions of length, breadth, 
and thickness, there is room for an infinite series 
of worlds within worlds, and for all the earths and 
heavens and hells that have ever been imagined 
or alleged to exist. We need not go outside it 
to find room for our heaven. If we are idealists 
of the old school, and regard the whole visible 
universe as but an illusion, a " veil of Maya," we 
may even abrogate the actuality of matter, and have 
an infinite three-dimensional vacuum wherein to 
locate what beings we please. But such an assump- 
tion is contrary to the principle of continuity and 
the principle of value, which maintain that there 
is an absolute reality (a living reality) behind what 
we perceive as matter, a reality with which we can 
never, in any state of existence, quite lose touch. 

In three-dimensional space, we have again to 
take our choice between space which is, and space 
which is not, connected with our earth. If the 
earth is ignored, we have at least three orders of 
universes to select from. These are — 

1. The terrene world, in which the planets as we 
know them act as such; 

2. The infra-world, whose planets are what we 
call electrons ; 

3. The supra-world, in which our galactic uni- 
verse probably plays the part of a minute organism. 1 

1 See the author's " Two New Worlds." 



THE CHOICE OF A WORLD 1 63 

The supra-world and infra-world are immediately 
excluded from our measurable future by their scale 
of dimensions. The beings which inhabit them 
enter into our lives, it is true, but not in a deter- 
mining 1 manner. We utilise the social laws of the 
infra-world to compass our own ends, and our social 
laws are no doubt similarly utilised by the supra- 
beings. But that arrangement leaves us a large 
margin of liberty, and that liberty we are during 
our earth-life training ourselves to acquire and 
enlarge. 

We find the abode of the soul thus narrowed 
down to our own planetary dimensions. Even then 
we have plenty of choice. We have all the starry 
universe open to us, as well as a number of planets 
of a size comparable to our earth. Then there is 
the moon, or the moons of other planets. There 
are the comets, there is open space, there' is the 
sun itself. Which of all these is the heaven we 
are looking for ? 

It is little use looking to the far-off stars, or 
beyond them, for the abode of the blest. Astronomy 
has taught us that there is nothing very peculiar 
about far-away stars. They are much like our 
own sun. There is more of a strange world to 
be encountered 30 miles up in the atmosphere 
than 50,000,000 miles away, on the surface of 
Mars. If we want strange forms of existence, let 
us try to imagine the inner consciousness of a fish 



1 64 THE SOUL-WOKLD 

or a tree. It is difficult enough, surely. No, we 
must resolutely combat the tendency to look for 
the unseen beyond the seen. The unseen is all 
about us. But for the accident which gave us 
eyes, everything about us would be " unseen." As 
it is, a single octave in the gamut of light-waves 
impresses our retina, revealing a very small pro- 
portion of what would be visible to a more com- 
pletely equipped intelligence. 

And then, why look to the moon and the planets ? 
For aught we know, they may be already in posses- 
sion of intelligences not far removed from our 
own, who might well resent our intrusion. Why 
not seek our heaven on ej-rth ? The earth is 
practically unknown to us. Six miles above sea- 
level clears the highest mountain. Ten miles 
below it reaches the lowest ocean-bottom. One 
mile underground touches bottom in the deepest 
pit. It is at the most one-eighth per cent, of the 
total thickness of the earth, the thickness of a 
thin scalp compared with the total stature of the 
body, the paper which covers the terrestrial globe 
compared with the globe itself! And the layer 
which supports " life " on our earth would be less 
than the thickness of the varnish on the paper. 

The known portion of the earth is comparable 
to a thin soap-bubble. All within and without the 
liquid layer is unknown. The conditions of our 
existence give us no direct access to the regions 



CLAIMS OF OUR ATMOSPHERE 165 

outside, and whatever information we can accumu- 
late is obtained indirectly by reasoning from analogy. 

There is, therefore, no necessity to go beyond 
the earth to seek new worlds in which the soul 
may dwell. The earth offers boundless variety and 
endless possibilities of existence. Even Socrates, 
with his limited resources, could enlarge upon the 
possible delights of the upper regions of the air 
for beings fitted to dwell in them. 1 We have only 
to choose a region where our soul-bodies shall 
have reasonable space and liberty, free from over- 
crowding, and from interference from (and with) 
our earth-life. 

Such a region is, most appropriately, the atmos- 
phere. I hope to show in what follows that the 
earth's atmosphere is a possible and exceedingly probable 
physical location for the soul-bodies of departed men. 
It may look like a return to ancient superstition, 
but that the ancients, and people at all times, 
looked upward for their future abode is no argu- 
ment against that abode being actually located 
there. It may be taken, on the contrary, as an 
indication of a correct instinct, unconsciously evolved 
perhaps from slight but gradually accumulated im- 
pulses in that direction. We shall not use the 
popular view as an argument in our favour, but 
base our case on quite other considerations. 

The atmosphere extends for at least 100 miles 
1 See Plato's " Phsedo." 



1 66 THE SOUL-WORLD 

above the earth's surface. Its lower surface (that 
which rests upon the ground) has an area of 
800,000,000 square miles, and its upper surface has 
an area of 840,000,000 square miles. Its volume 
is at least 80,000,000,000 cubic miles. This means 
that if the souls of all human beings that have 
lived and died for the last twelve centuries were 
distributed at equal intervals throughout the atmos- 
phere, they would be a mile apart ! They would, 
indeed, be very lonely and isolated. If we made 
the distance half a mile, we could find room for 
the human population of the last 10,000 years, 
with plenty of open space in which to move about. 
The average distance between living human beings 
on the land surface at the present time is one- 
third of a mile. If this density of population were 
extended to the atmosphere, the latter would be 
able to accommodate the human souls that lived 
on earth for the last 32,000 years. 

We see, therefore, that no quantitative difficulty 
is encountered by our hypothesis so far. We can 
hold out a prospect of at least 30,000 years' occupa- 
tion of a place within the atmosphere after the 
surface life of threescore years and ten — surely a 
term well worth accepting as a substantial instal- 
ment of immortality. When that term has expired, 
we may well suppose that the individual is prepared 
to " move on " into interplanetary space, and leave 
the earth behind. 



THE UPPER AIR 1 67 

But what kind of existence would this aerial 
existence be ? Can we determine, even if only 
provisionally, some of its conditions ? 

As already stated, we know very little of the 
higher strata of the atmosphere. The highest man- 
bearing balloon voyage is 6 miles, and that is also 
the height of the highest mountain-peak. Recently, 
some attempts have been made to explore the 
higher strata of the atmosphere by means of test 
balloons (ballons-sondes), notably at the Trappes 
Observatory, near Paris. One of the most interest- 
ing results is the discovery of a comparatively 
warm stratum some distance above the earth. 
This is referred to by a recent writer as follows : l — 

" While not presuming to offer an explanation 
of the isothermal or relatively warm stratum in the 
high atmosphere, which the recent letters in Nature 
have made known to others than meteorologists, I 
desire to point out that it is probably a universal 
phenomenon, existing at some height all around 
the globe. This inversion of temperature was 
first discovered by M. Teisserenc de Bort with the 
ballons - sondes sent up from his observatory at 
Trappes, near Paris, in 1901, and almost simul- 
taneously by Professor Assmann from similar 
German observations. Since then almost all the 
balloons which have risen more than 40,000 feet 
above Central Europe (that is, near latitude 50°) 

1 A. L. Rotch, in Nature for May 7, 1908. 



1 68 THE SOUL-WORLD 

have penetrated this stratum, without, however, 
determining its upper limit. Teisserenc de Bort 
early showed that its height above the earth, to 
the extent of 8000 feet, varied directly with the 
barometric pressure at the ground. Mr. Dines 
{Nature, p. 390) gives the average height of the 
isothermal layer above England as 35,000 feet, 
with extremes of nearly 50 per cent, of the 
mean. Observations conducted last March by our 
indefatigable French colleague, Teisserenc de Bort, 
in Sweden, just within the Arctic circle, showed 
that the minimum temperature occurred at nearly 
the same height as at Trap pes, namely, 36,000 
feet, although Professor Hergesell, who made use 
of ballons-sondes over the Arctic Ocean, near latitude 
75° N., during the summer of 1906, concluded 
that the isothermal stratum there sank as low as 
23,000 feet. 

" During the past three years the writer has 
despatched seventy-seven ballons - sondes from St. 
Louis, U.S.A., latitude 38° N., and most of those 
which rose higher than 43,000 feet entered the 
inverted stratum of temperature. This was found 
to be somewhat lower in summer, but the follow- 
ing marked inversions were noted last autumn : 
October 8, the minimum temperature of —90° 
Fahr. occurred at 47,600 feet, whereas at the 
maximum altitude of 54,100 feet the temperature 
had risen to — 72° ; October 10, the lowest tempera- 



RECENT RESEARCHES 1 69 

ture of - 80° was found at 39,700 feet, while - 69° 
was recorded at 42,200 feet, showing a descent 
of nearly 8000 feet in the temperature-inversion 
within two days. The expedition sent out jointly 
by M. Teisserenc de Bort and the writer, on 
the former's steam yacht Otaria, to sound the 
atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic during the 
summer of 1906, launched ballons-sondes both north 
and south of the equator within the tropics, and 
although some of these balloons rose to nearly 
50,000 feet, they gave no indication of an iso- 
thermal stratum. In fact, the paradoxical fact was 
established that in summer it is colder eight miles 
above the thermal equator than it is in winter at 
the same height in north temperate regions. This 
results from the more rapid decrease of temperature 
in the tropics and the absence of the numerous 
temporary inversions which, as Mr. Dines has pointed 
out, are common in our regions below 10,000 feet. 
If, therefore, as seems probable, the isothermal or 
relatively warm stratum does exist in the tropical 
and equatorial regions, it must lie at a height 
exceeding 50,000 feet, from which height, as the 
data quoted show, it gradually descends towards 
the Pole, at least in the northern hemisphere." 

We also know that about 30 miles above the 
ground the air is a comparatively good conductor 
of electricity. It is this conducting layer of the 
atmosphere which is probably most effective in 



I/O THE SOUL-WORLD 

absorbing the ultra-violet rays of the sun. Now 
what may we conclude from this ? That a. being 
specially sensitive to ultra-violet light would have 
an impression of brightness above that stratum, and 
of darkness below it. The stratum itself would 
appear like a dark cloud-bank (although quite 
transparent to us) and would make a pretty sharp 
boundary between the upper and lower regions of 
the atmosphere. 

The regular succession of day and night would 
be the same as with us, and this succession would 
no doubt bring about a periodical change of activity 
just as it does in our case. Clouds in our sense 
are confined to the lower strata of the atmosphere, 
but storms are not. Indeed, the modern theory 
maintains that all storms originate in the higher 
strata of the atmosphere, and are of solar or inter- 
stellar origin. It is just possible that some one 
may propound the theory that they are of psychic 
origin, and that all atmospheric precipitations, 
governed as they are by wind and by the ionisation 
of the atmosphere, are intimately associated with 
the distribution and motion of the psychic entities 
of the upper air, whether they be conscious of it 
or not. In that case we may look for a revival, if 
not of Jupiter Pluvius, at least of the practice of 
praying for rain, or for fine weather. 

Although the atmosphere has no permanent 
features, like the earth, the landscape of the latter 



ATMOSPHERIC STRATA 171 

has a decided influence upon the state of the lower 
strata. The deflecting action of a hill upon a 
horizontal current of air may be felt as high as 
30,000 feet, as the ballons-sondes observations have 
shown. Hills have also a decided influence upon 
the electric potential gradient, and peaks sometimes 
acquire a negative potential many thousand volts 
higher than the surrounding air. 

The extreme cold of the upper air has no terrors 
for a being which has no liquid in its constitution. 
And after all, the minimum of —90° Fahr. is not 
below the coldest temperature observed on the 
ground within the north polar circle. If human 
beings in the flesh have survived that, a disem- 
bodied spirit need have no anxiety on the matter. 

Life in the atmosphere, " on the wing," so to 
speak, is not quite like anything we are familiar 
with. The body of a fish is of the same density as 
water. A slight change in its density would send 
the fish right up to the surface or right down to the 
bottom. If the density of a fish body were in- 
creased by as little as one part in 10,000, it would 
sink at least 60 feet below the surface, and a com- 
pression of 1 per cent, would send it down a mile. 
A similar change in density, taking place in a 
balloon, or in any object floating in the air, would 
alter its altitude by not more than 300 feet. This is 
because air is very much more compressible than 
water. If a body kept its density constant, it 



172 THE SOUL-WORLD 

would float at a nearly constant level in the air, 
much like a vessel rocked on the waves. The 
observed reversal of the temperature gradient in the 
upper air referred to on p. 168 would have the effect 
of increasing the buoyancy of the air above the 
plane of reversal by making the density gradient 
steeper. If, however, a body ever fell below the 
coldest stratum it would get into a region of very 
shallow density gradients, where the density in- 
creased only slowly with decreasing height, and 
might have to fall a considerable distance before 
regaining its equilibrium. If we wanted to indulge 
in a somewhat wild guess, we might say that this 
region of maximum cold, the region where the 
temperature gradient is reversed, is a true and 
effective division which separates two distinct por- 
tions of the atmosphere, and therefore also two 
distinct soul-worlds. To attain the upper region, it 
would be necessary for any soul to have a small 
weight per volume, i.e. a low density, which might 
either mean a great tenuity and lightness of the 
psychomeres, or sufficient energy to fill out and 
" effectively occupy " an exceptionally large space. 

Hitherto we have only investigated the conditions 
of rest and motion in the atmospheric world, as 
far as our very rough and incomplete methods will 
allow. But there are, of course, a great many other 
problems pressing for solution. Life does not con- 
sist solely in motion. Plant-life, indeed, dispenses with 



CONDITIONS OF LIFE 1 73 

all locomotion. In animals, locomotion is a primary- 
necessity. But that is largely because they are in- 
capable of absorbing energy direct from sunlight, and 
have to move about to acquire it at second-hand as 
best they can. With us, the necessity for motion 
has not ceased, but its main object is not nutrition, 
but social activity. Some people, indeed, are never 
stationary in one place unless they are either eating 
or sleeping. In a more refined state of existence 
this distinction may become still more marked. 
The slight energy required for motion may possibly 
be derived from the ultra-violet light of the sun 
direct, and the main object of motion may be social 
rather than physiological. This would do away with 
all necessity for digestion and respiration and cir- 
culation, and would simplify anatomy very con- 
siderably. It would then remain to be seen whether 
any muscles, nerves, and special sense organs were 
required. As regards muscles we might reply in 
the affirmative. For since the sun is not always \ 
shining, and there is no other equally powerful 
supply to take its place, there must be some way 
of storing the erergy for use when required. Our 
muscles are such stores of energy, and we can well 
imagine groups of psychomeres set apart with the 
special object of acting as stores of energy. 

As regards sense organs, it is evident that eyes 
like our own would be very nearly useless. The 
chief object of organs of vision would be the per- 



174 THE SOUL-WORLD 

ception of neighbouring soul-bodies. These are 
invisible to mortal eyes, and therefore the eyes of 
the soul must be of quite a different structure. 
The ordinary laws of refraction cannot apply to 
them since they are transparent to our light waves. 
There may be specialised organs based on a different 
principle, or there may be just the generalised 
sensibility which we find in the infusoria. The 
latter is rendered probable by certain experiences 
of ecstasy, as well as the curious locations of sight 
in the knee-joint, &c, exhibited by some hysteric 
patients. 

Life in the soul-world thus probably consists in a 
greatly vivified intercourse of " kindred souls." We 
can imagine that what we call a " play of features " is 
generalised into an expressiveness of the soul-body 
as a whole, which excludes all deceit and falsehood 
and enables souls to group themselves readily ac- 
cording to their sense of kinship. Such groupings, 
of course, may, like their earthly counterparts, be 
only temporary. Whether there is any amalgama- 
tion or true fusion of souls must, of course, remain 
an open question. If there is, the question of the 
" over-production " of individuals finds an easy 
solution. We need only assume that for every 
individual that becomes two (as in birth), two 
individuals become one. Thus the number of indi- 
viduals on the planet might remain sensibly the 
same. 



CHAPTER V 

INTERCOMMUNICATION 

Having arrived at a consistent and coherent con- 
ception of the soul-body and the soul-world, we 
must next examine the relations which exist be- 
tween our earth-world and the soul-world. Strictly 
speaking, the soul-world is also an earth-world, as 
it belongs to our planet. But we will use the term 
" earth-world " to denote that thin layer of the 
earth's surface which supports organic life, and 
which is supposed by materialists to be the only 
seat of life in the universe. 

The soul-world, by our hypothesis, is the atmos- 
phere, and more especially the upper atmosphere, 
which is illuminated by ultra-violet light from the 
sun in the daytime, and by a faint glow of ultra- 
violet light from the unveiled stars at night. 

How do these two worlds appear to each other ? 

To us, the soul-world is a wide flat dome over- 
head, blue in the daytime and nearly black at 
night, often obscured by clouds of fantastic shapes, 
which diffuse the sunlight and intercept the light 
of the stars. We observe the enterprising tribe of 
birds traversing the air at some distance above the 



1 76 INTERCOMMUNICATION 

ground, and hope to follow in their tracks in the 
near future. On a cloudless day the sky hangs 
over us like a vast blue crystalline globe, without 
a trace of structure or differentiation, and we look 
longingly, but in vain, for any sign of recognition, 
any familiar face or object, in that vast and ap- 
parently vacant expanse. True, a polariscope shows 
us that the light from the sky is not uniform in all 
directions, and reveals some kind of a " structure " 
in the various parts of it. But our unaided eyes 
see nothing but uniformity, sameness, the symbol of 
peace, of eternity, of nothingness, of Nirvana, the 
end and consummation of all things. 

And now look at the reverse of the medal. A 
soul floating some 30 or 40 miles above the 
ground, above a summer-hot landscape, would see 
nothing but clouds below, even though to us the 
sky be cloudless. The clouds would consist of 
masses of ionised air which absorb or reflect the 
ultra-violet light to which alone the soul's vision is 
attuned. Below these clouds there would be a dim 
light resembling what we would call moonlight, 
consisting of the small proportion of ultra-violet 
light transmitted to the earth, and this again 
would be all but lost in the denser atmosphere 
and clouds of ionisation nearer the earth's surface. 
The sunlit landscape would appear to the soul much 
as the bottom of a rather muddy pond would 
appear to us. 



DIFFICULTIES OF INTERCOURSE 177 

The proportion of people who care to dip into 
muddy pools and investigate their aquatic life is 
not large among mortals. And so we may imagine 
that it is not usual among souls to haunt the 
haunts of men in the earth-world, and if any 
of them do, they will be the exception rather 
than the rule, and will do so under some very 
powerful impulse which overrides their natural 
disposition and takes them out of their natural 
element. 

On our side, the temptation to penetrate into the 
upper regions of the soul-world is not great either. 
Our bodies are quite unadapted to life in the upper 
air. If we got there, we should see nothing, and 
would find ourselves as uncomfortable as a fish out 
of water. 

Intercourse between the earth-world and the 
soul-world requires a modification in the denizens 
of either the one or the other before it is practicable. 
That is to say, souls must become like men, or men 
must become like souls, before they can commune 
on anything like equal terms. As matters stand, 
the vast majority of disembodied souls are inacces- 
sible to us, and we to them. It is not a question of 
superiority. If the souls have a superior kind of 
existence, if they are more free and unfettered, 
more mobile, better able to express and embody 
their inmost thoughts, they are not therefore 
superior to us, who surpass them, most probably, 

M 



I 7 8 INTERCOMMUNICATION 

in power over the solid and liquid states of matter, 
and reign supreme on the crust of the globe. Our 
spheres of influence are separate. Our interests 
and pursuits are different. There is not necessarily- 
more sympathy between us and them than there 
is between different animal species. Look at the 
human race on earth ! Do not rivalry, competi- 
tion, mutual envy, and hostility have more to say 
to our daily conduct than sympathy and com- 
passion ? Is there always love between brothers, 
or even between parents and children ? Is not love 
I the exception rather than the rule ? Then how 
shall we feel a love for beings in another world 
with whom we may have even less in common ? 
We can quite imagine a state of feeling amounting 
to an " armed peace " between the earth-world and 
the soul-world, each world guarding its frontiers 
from aggression and from the immigration of " un- 
desirable aliens." What complicates matters is that 
we are pouring a ceaseless stream of very mixed 
entities — some 50,000,000 per annum — into the 
soul-world every year. Some of these are not fit 
to be received there, and are possibly sent back 
to prowl about the earth until they find a more 
auspicious opportunity of rising. But this pressure 
from below may be a valuable incentive towards 
further development for the higher strata of entities, 
just as the encroachments of bacilli and insects are 
to us. We find a teeming life below us, which will 



PERMANENT RELATION'S I 79 

overcome us unless we make our position solid and 
impregnable, and carefully and vigilantly guard the 
sphere we wish to reserve for our own use. Some- 
thing like the same state of things may prevail as 
between our earth-world and the soul-world. It 
may be a question, less of hostility or sympathy 
than of " live and let live," of mutual adjustment 
and toleration. If, in addition, certain bonds of 
affection apparently severed by death are strong- 
enough to withstand the tension across the gulf, 
there may be a constant stream of thought-com- 
munication passing between inhabitants of this 
world and the next, and even an exchange of visits 
in special cases. 

That there is no absolute separation between the 
inhabitants . of the two worlds is clear from our 
hypothesis, which regards all intelligences as rays 
from the same centre. But that kind of connection 
also links us with the most " malignant " fiend, and 
does not exclude fierce hostility. An intermediate 
linkage would be a surer bond of friendship. This 
ought to be provided by the continuity that exists 
between the human race extant and those that 
have " gone before." But blood-relationship is no 
sure guarantee against parricide and fratricide, and 
a link of close sympathy is often forged of quite 
different elements, such as community of interest 
and of work. 

We may put it down as a pretty safe rule that 



ISO INTERCOMMUNICATION 

wherever communication is desirable and mutually 
profitable, there it will sooner or later be established. 
We may treat with the soul-world as " a sovereign 
State with a sovereign State." Our earth-world 
has its own dignity, and its own responsibilities, 
which no other world, high or low, can deprive or 
relieve us of. We must solve our own problems 
in our own manner, by the light of our own in- 
tellectual resources. We are constantly asserting 
that right here, ruthlessly and pitilessly in many 
ways, as, for instance, with regard to many animal 
species less powerful than ourselves. We by no 
means agree as a race upon any single policy. 
Within the human race there are many inde- 
pendent communities, largely in a state of rivalry 
or hostility towards each other. Each evolves, by 
long experience, its own principles of conduct, its 
own ethics, its own ideal of good. It endeavours 
to carry out those ideals, deeming them the best, 
or even the only good. The hostile community 
evolves different ideals, which, in the conflict 
between the two, prevail or go under. The better 
survives, and mankind at large is the richer by 
a valuable experience, a valuable addition to its 
ethical evolution. If we are the vanquished, we 
say that it is a triumph of evil. If we are the 
victors, we call it a triumph of good. After a 
lapse of time, mankind recognises that that was 
not a Manichean struggle between good and 



RIVALRY OF IDEALS l8l 

evil, but between good and better. Whether a 
thing is to be ranked as good or as better depends 
upon the area to which it applies. A thief pursues 
his own good only. His ideal, applied all round, 
would mean anarchy and universal poverty. 
Therefore his ideal is " bad," and the community 
sees to it that a better ideal prevails. 

Let us apply this line of reasoning to the question 
of our relations with the soul-world. We have 
certain ideals which we are steadily realising here 
on earth. They include such things as safety, 
liberty, self-development, increase of knowledge, 
facility of motion, avoidance of pain and disease, 
general stability, encouragement of the arts and 
all that makes life beautiful. We comprise all this 
in the single word civilisation. It is our highest 
earthly good. All education, all reform, all public 
policies are judged by the manner in which they 
affect this good, favourably or unfavourably. 

If any one wishes to bring about a reform, a new 
departure, he must persuade the community that it 
would be for the public good. If it is already in 
force elsewhere, he must point out its good results, 
and prove that its adoption would prove equally 
beneficial at home. If he proves insufficiently per- 
suasive, he can try other methods. He can adopt 
the reform himself, and persuade his friends to do 
the same. He will then be judged by the number 
and the determination of his friends. The good he 



I 8 2 INTERCOMMUNICATION 

and his friends experience will be tested by the 
amount of their unwillingness to give up the reform. 
If they are willing to go to prison for it, they 
may carry the day. What was judged bad or even 
criminal may then be judged good and commend- 
able, and worthy of imitation. It may be adopted 
by the entire community. The reform will become 
a betterment, and will vanquish the antecedent 
good. 

All ethics thus resolves itself into a competition, 
a race. All evil is comparative. We must take 
care that we can stand comparison. In so far as 
we cannot, we shall be condemned. 

What is the safest guide towards this end ? It 
is love, it is sympathy. By it we enlarge the area 
of our own good, and make it include our neigh- 
bour's good. Love is a higher linkage, a knotting 
of rays above our own plane. Love bars out cruelty 
and treachery. It does not bar out a good straight 
fight. 

How will any possible intercourse with the soul- 
world affect our public policies ? It will be judged 
by its effect on civilisation. In fact, we might say 
it has been judged by that, and has heretofore been 
found wanting, and has accordingly been abolished. 
In the days of Troy, the gods fought hand to hand 
with mortals. The gods of Persia prevailed over 
those of Babylon, the gods of Greece over Persia. 
All ancient records are full of apparitions of gods 



SUPPRESSION" OF INTERCOURSE 1 83 

and angels, of wizards and soothsayers, of demons 
of the air and goblins of the deep. Men go out of 
their bodies and devils enter them. Apollo appears 
out of a cloud 

Nubc candentes umeros amictus 

and disappears as he came. Signs and wonders 
appear in the sky. People go about who possess 
all kinds of uncanny powers and occult lore. 

This goes on for centuries, until the days of the 
Press and the national school. Learning becomes 
general, the voice of the learned reaches farther 
than the university lecture hall. It is heard all 
over the land, it is heard throughout the masses of 
the population. The nation becomes of one mind, 
and bears the imprint of its own master-minds. 
These master-minds ponder over the uncertainty, 
the havoc wrought by those demons and witches 
and apparitions. They conclude that they ought to 
be stamped out. The population, in a mad frenzy, 
goes and stamps them out. The next generation 
know them no more. The young devotees of 
science grow up unaware of their existence. The 
young devotees grow up, and become master-minds. 
These master-minds proclaim aloud that such things 
do not exist, do not occur. Nay, more, they never 
did exist, they never took place. It was all a de- 
lusion, due to well-known laws of popular fallacy. 
All present-day reports of apparitions are instances 



1 84 INTERCOMMUNICATION 

of these well-known laws of popular fallacy. Being 
such, they must not be taken seriously, or, if any 
one does take them seriously, the proper place for 
him is the lunatic asylum. 

And thus it comes about that all the fairies, 
pixies, sylphs, and gnomes fly before the flaring 
light of science. They are not so much sent away 
as explained away, and that, in a large and well- 
organised community, is very nearly as good, and 
suffices for all practical purposes. 

The absence of all recognised forms of communi- 
cation with the soul-world in recent times is due to 
the concentration of attention on the things of our 
earth-world. The effect of such concentration of 
attention in obscuring other things is a common- 
place of psychology. 

Nevertheless, we cannot be certain that both the 
possibility and desirability of communication with 
the soul-world may not again very prominently 
occupy the attention of mankind. A small begin- 
ning (if it is a beginning) has been made within the 
last fifty years, first in America, then in England, 
and lately in Italy and elsewhere. The results, 
broadly speaking, have made out a strong case for 
the possibility of such communication. The general 
desirability of it may still be a moot point, but in 
any case, no disasters, and no inconveniences worth 
speaking of, have occurred through the tentative 
efforts so far made ; and that is saying more in its 



METHODS OF COMMUNICATION I 85 

favour than can be alleged in many new departures 
of, say, surgery or bacteriology. 

Without entering into the discussion of any com- 
munications, real or alleged, between this world and 
the next, we can arrive at some general principles 
which most probably regulate such communications. 
The method of communication which we adopt 
among ourselves consists chiefly in certain audible 
or visible signals and symbols, each of which we are 
educated to associate with a certain idea or experi- 
ence of our own. That is language. The method 
of communication between souls is probably more 
direct, owing to the greater mobility and expressive- 
ness of the soul-bodies themselves. It consists in 
what we would call thought-reading and face-read- 
ing, or their equivalents. To communicate with the 
soul-world, either of these methods must be used. 
The souls must use our sign-language, or we must 
acquire their thought-transference. There is evi- 
dence to show, with a high degree of probability, that 
both methods are in force. In religious ecstasy, in 
inspiration and illumination, in the bursts of genius, 
in moments of crisis, in the moment of death, we 
have glimpses of this direct receptivity, this filling 
of the whole being with a flood of thought or emo- 
tion, which most probably characterises life in the 
soul-world. On the other hand, we have the records 
of trance-speaking, automatic writing, and the per- 
cussion and motion of objects to show that some 



1 86 INTERCOMMUNICATION 

intelligence other than human is working along the 
customary human channels. When a soul attempts 
to do this, the obvious plan Avould be for it to throw 
itself into a kind of " trance " in which it would 
recall the conditions of its earth-life. This would 
be most easily accomplished by entering into close 
rapport with some suitable living person whose or- 
ganism might be controlled by the visitor from the 
soul-world for temporary purposes of communica- 
tion. This rapport, for aught we know, may take 
the form of a temporary physical amalgamation of 
the embodied and disembodied souls, which would 
correspond to what the ancients called " possession." 
Or the embodied soul might even be temporarily 
disembodied, and lend its organism for a time to 
the stranger. The latter would, under favourable 
conditions, find no difficulty in controlling the bor- 
rowed organism for a time. This control might 
take the form of speaking or writing under control, 
perhaps the readiest and most satisfactory method 
of communication. If the controlling soul wishes 
for a temporary return to earth-life, the natural 
thing would be to exert its old condensing and 
organising powers on earthly matter. The matter 
so used must be specially adapted to this purpose, 
just as animal and vegetable tissues are specially 
adapted to our own growth and nutrition, and such 
a supply of matter would most readily be found 
within the borrowed organism. A partially or 



APPARITIONS 187 

wholly "materialised" organism might thus be 
temporarily produced, and be afterwards as rapidly 
dematerialised. It goes without saying that a pro- 
cess of this kind would expose the borrowed organ- 
ism to unknown dangers, and might be a matter of 
very great difficulty and delicacy. In any case, the 
" apparition " would derive its characteristics from 
the earth-memories of the " controlled " person or 
medium, and from any traces of earth-memories 
which might be possessed or temporarily recalled by 
the visiting soul. It would be strongly influenced 
by the general character of those present and by 
the surroundings. Its conditio sine qud non would 
be a recollection, a familiarity with the temporary 
earthly surroundings, and nothing unusual in word 
or action need be looked for. 

The control of an earthly organism by a being 
from the soul-world requires a state of passivity in 
the former. This state is naturally greater in the 
night than in the daytime, greater in the dark than 
in the light. We might therefore expect better 
conditions in the dark than in a bright light. 

We need not expect much intelligible information 
from any such communications. In the first place, 
they would naturally be made under conditions 
anything but favourable to intelligent communica- 
tion. The spheres of life are more different than 
those of men and of fishes, and whatever connection 
is established is biassed and strongly coloured by the 



I 8 8 INTERCOMMUNICATION 

human medium. And further, we cannot reason- 
ably expect anything new or valuable about our 
own world from beings who naturally belong to 
another. It would be as reasonable to expect from 
my next-door neighbour new information concern- 
ing the state of my coal-supply or the pickles in 
my pantry. If an attempt is made to inform us 
concerning life in the soul-world, such information 
will be found extremely difficult to impart and to 
translate, so to speak, into the language of the reci- 
pients, who may have no equivalent experience to 
appeal to. 

Yet with patience and the taking of pains we 
might enter into the life of the soul-world to the 
extent, at all events, to which we have entered into 
the life of ancient Egypt since we began to decipher 
the hieroglyphs. But, taking all the circumstances 
into consideration, we cannot expect to obtain satis- 
factory results without taking very much more 
trouble about it than Egyptologist ever took. And 
who is there at present prepared to face such a task, 
even for the immense reward it offers ? 

The inevitable communication between the two 
worlds which takes place at the death of one of us 
remains to be considered. May we not think that 
perhaps some loving welcome awaits us at death, 
similar to the welcome which greeted us at birth ? 
Is there not, perhaps, an instinct for the increase 
of soul-life which rules the soul-world, just as the 



NO TERRORS AHEAD I 89 

silent impulse towards child-life rules this ? Does 
not the divine impulse towards the cherishing and 
protecting of inexperience extend also into the soul- 
world, and urge its wise and beautiful inhabitants 
to minister to the newly born soul-body with the 
keen delight which parents feel in ministering to 
their earthly offspring ? Of this I am certain, that if 
any terror awaited us beyond, if the soul-world were 
not at least as fair and as good to live in as this, 
there would long ago have been such a steady back- 
ward pressure of fear and repugnance as would have 
sufficed to counterbalance the forward pressure of 
the human race. The race, in its horror of death, 
would have had a horror of life, and a horror of 
generating life, which would ages ago have dried up 
the springs of fertility and made an end of the 
human race. The race would have been like a vast 
crowd surging towards an abyss, and warned of it 
by the vague disturbance ahead, the cries of distress, 
the straining backward, the gathering panic. 

No, we may be certain that nothing worse awaits 
us than the worst we experience in this earthly life. 
And for aught we can dimly foresee, most of our 
familiar terrors will be eliminated. Falsehood and 
uncertainty are two of our greatest curses, and these 
will almost certainly become very much mitigated. 
The conditions of the new life are such as to reduce 
them to a minimum. 

Of the elimination of disease and death I need 



1 90 INTERCOMMUNICATION 

not speak. The former may possibly be eliminated 
from earth-life before very long, or reduced to a 
single form, that of a prolonged and healing sleep. 
And as regards death, we shall then know that what 
we formerly understood by that is non-existent. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE WIDER PROBLEMS OF IMMORTALITY 

Hitherto we have only dealt with the human 
aspect of immortality, or rather, of this world and 
the next. The general problem of immortality 
is immeasurably wider. It includes questions as 
to the fate of lower organisms, the existence of 
organisms far beyond the human scale, of in- 
habitants of other stars and planets, and of inter- 
stellar space. 

We can only touch the fringe of these vast 
problems, and need only deal with them in so far 
as they affect our present state and our immediate 
prospects hereafter. 

Do animals possess souls ? According to the 
general lines of our argument, we must answer 
most decidedly : they do. Their organisms are as 
complex as our own. They require similar directing 
centres or psychomeres. Their mental faculties are, 
as a rule, greatly underrated, largely on account of 
the difficulty we experience in "putting ourselves 
in their place." Indeed, we may seriously doubt 
whether ants and bees, for instance, are, in their own 
sphere, in any way inferior to ourselves, or, if they 



I92 THE WIDER PROBLEMS OP IMMORTALITY 

are, whether their partial inferiority in some things 
is not compensated by a superiority in others. 

Do they survive then, also ? Are they, too, 
immortal, like ourselves ? 

We can allege no sufficient reason why they 
should not be ! The idea that noxious insects, for 
instance, may accompany us and confront us in the 
soul-world is enough to fill some sensitive minds 
with horror and loathing. They would, at that 
price, rather not have immortality. They would 
prefer annihilation. 

But let us look at this question rationally and 
coolly. In the first place, we may possibly never 
come near them. They may be thoroughly " earth- 
bound," and passing through a cycle of rapid rein- 
carnations, they may, if they people the atmosphere 
at all, be confined to its lowest strata. If they 
inhabit the soul-world itself, they may fulfil a useful 
function there, something like horses and cows and 
pet canaries in this. For the practices and pursuits 
which make them objectionable here will be neces- 
sarily modified by the change of world and of state 
of aggregation. 

With plants the case is somewhat different, though 
not fundamentally different. A plant is a much 
looser aggregation of cell communities than an 
animal. A flower, plucked from the stem, is cap- 
able of blooming for some time in a flower-glass. 
When it dies, it is quite possible that the knot 



PERMANENT IMMORTALITY 1 93 

which bound its cells together is dissolved also, 
that the cell-knots are loosened, and that certain 
organic molecules, or even the atoms which com- 
posed them, may be the only permanent units of 
consciousness which remain. 

We may take it for granted that the more the 
self-consciousness and the will are developed, the 
more permanent is the individuality. The in- 
dividuals of the human race have therefore the best 
chances of real (i.e. permanent) immortality. The 
development of the individual goes hand in hand 
with his training in altruistic activity. Both factors 
make for permanent survival. He is made strong, 
and he is made useful — strong to defend himself, 
useful in forwarding the interests of the com- 
munity. Permanent survival thus depends upon 
two factors, each of them of independent value, 
but both together forming an irresistible com- 
bination. 

If I would have my life-knot strong and secure, I 
must see to it that all the psychomeres which obey 
my will feel thoroughly at one, and firmly bound 
together in a common cause. " Union is strength." 
I must fill their lives with a common inspiration. 
They will strengthen me, and I, in turn, shall 
strengthen them. 

If, for any reason, I am personally unable to give 
them that firm government and vital inspiration 
which they need, I must get it from above, i.e. by 

N 



194 THE WIDER PROBLEMS OF IMMORTALITY 

attaching myself closely to a larger organism, enter- 
ing its service with loyalty and glad devotion, and 
hand that loyalty and gladness down to them that 
serve me. I must be wise in my choice of that 
higher organism, that Master whom I will serve. He 
must be able to command my unswerving love and 
devotion. He must be strong, and His strength 
must be permanent too, and for the same reason, i.e. 
because it is in accordance with the greatest good. 
Thus I can safely defy the immeasurable eternities 
before me. 

Immortality thus presents itself to us in several 
new aspects. It is possible, though not inevitable. 
It is, so to speak, optional. The alternative to im- 
mortality is the disintegration of the individual, 
which is the only real death, and is not in any 
way connected with the laying aside of the ballast 
organism which is popularly known as death. The 
latter should, if anything, lead to a closer tying of 
the vital knot, a more vivid and energetic co-opera- 
tion between the psychomeres, and to that " sense 
of immense power " testified to by those who have 
been half-way across the gulf and returned. 

Nor can the possible amalgamation or fusion of two 
or more personalities be taken to imply the death 
of the individual. It should be, of all things, the 
moment of the most supreme rapture and ineffable 
bliss, a bliss of which we catch a faint glimpse in the 
transports of human love, and more especially in 



DISINTEGRATION 1 9 5 

those exquisite refinements of love between the 
sexes which have been sung by poets of every age. 

Again, the disintegration of an individuality 
admits of several gradations. We have seen that 
there are infinite gradations of life-communities and 
planes of life-knots. The dissolving of a knot on 
one plane need not imply the dissolving of the knots 
immediately below it. Sometimes it certainly does 
not. Thus,' those infusoria which, after conjuga- 
tion, become cj^sts and give rise to numberless 
independent spores, show a disintegration of in- 
dividuality which but slightly lowers the plane of 
life, and does not hinder the re-attainment of the 
original level by the independent individuals. In the 
human body, after physical " death," the disintegra- 
tion is much more complex. The life-knots of the 
cells are dissolved, and also those of the biophores 
or " pangens " which build up the various contents 
of the cell. These are probably destroyed by the 
withdrawal of the controlling psychomeres. Disin- 
tegration remains latent so long as there is no active 
agent of destruction, and may remain undiscover- 
able when such agents are wanting (as under ex- 
treme cold). But under ordinary circumstances 
those useful scavengers, the bacteria, make short 
work of the outworn machine. They convert it into 
amines and amino-acids, which again give rise to 
ammonia. The latter is either absorbed by plants 
direct, or " nitrified " into nitrates, or " denitrified " 



196 THE WIDER PROBLEMS OF IMMORTALITY 

into nitrogen. The nitrates are absorbed by plants, 
and the nitrogen is fixed in the soil by the nitrogen- 
fixing bacteria, so that it also becomes suitable for 
that most essential link between the animal and 
inorganic worlds, the plant. It is thus that nitrogen, 
that chemical species which of all species produces 
the most unstable and delicately poised compounds, 
circles the round of nature, descending into the 
" hell " of the infra-world before it again rises to the 
level of the animal. 

The view here adopted gives also a rational inter- 
pretation of blood-relationship as affecting life in 
the soul-world. It is just here that the incon- 
ceivabilities of the ordinary loose notions of survival 
become most glaring. Imagine a soul-world in 
which ancestors and grandsires and great-grand- 
children are indiscriminately herded together. If 
any earthly traditions remained among them there 
would be an intolerable tyranny of age over youth, 
tempered perhaps by a perennial and ever-increasing 
recalcitrance of the latter. There would not be, as 
with us, a reasonable progress tempered by a reason- 
able conservatism. On our view, on the other hand, 
there is a gradual ascent of man towards higher 
and higher levels, represented, not symbolically, but 
really, by higher strata of the atmosphere. It is 
like the smoke of incense ascending towards the 
Most High. 

A view such as this is opposed to what is known 



REINCARNATION 1 9 7 

as metempsychosis or reincarnation, or the return 
of the soul to earth-life after a certain interval, and 
its passage through successive lives in the course of 
its gradual perfectioning. But our general experience 
of nature in such departments as those of natural 
history precludes us from pronouncing such a 
return as impossible, or even unlikely. Whenever 
we have a choice of two alternative processes, the 
safest conclusion to arrive at is that loth are true, and 
are sometimes chosen. For nature loves variety, 
not only of individuals, but of ways and means. 
Putting it grossly, we might call it a matter of 
statistics, and ask the question : What percentage of 
souls go through repeated incarnations on earth ? 

Reincarnation itself may take place in a variety 
of ways. There are well-authenticated cases of 
double or ' ' duplex " personality, in which the char- 
acter of a person suddenly changes, exactly as if 
the person's body were in possession of another 
entity. The former personality suddenly returns, 
and sometimes there is a more or less rapid alterna- 
tion of the two selves. 1 By careful treatment, the 
two personalities may even be amalgamated and 
fused into one. 

If we assume the " spiritistic " explanation, the 
invading spirit must obviously be taken as tempo- 
rarily incarnated, and as enjoying the powers con- 

1 See Sidis and Goodhart, "Multiple Personality" (Appleton, 
London, 1905). 



198 THE WIDER PROBLEMS OF IMMORTALITY 

ferred upon it by the possession of a physical 
organism. If that is possible, then such invasion 
is also conceivable in infancy or at the moment of 
birth, or even during gestation, in which case we 
should have to postulate the physical death or 
disembodiment, temporary or permanent, of the 
soul previously in possession of the organism in- 
vaded. This would appear to be rather a purpose- 
less procedure. And even if we go right back to 
the moment of conception, the difficulties by no 
means disappear. For although the presence of a 
crowd of souls desiring re-embodiment might explain 
not only the readiness with which new-comers are 
welcomed, but also the rapidity of their prenatal 
development, it fails when we take the most 
primitive type of birth, viz. simple fission. For 
when a cell divides into two equal parts, it would 
be absurd to suppose that one of them is henceforth 
to harbour an invading soul, while the other remains 
in possession of its original occupier. 

And as regards the problem of development, even 
if we explained it by the memories of previous in- 
carnations, which facilitate the formation of the 
well-remembered organs, the explanation would 
hardly cover the equally rapid formation of an 
organ by regeneration in an earth-worm or a lizard. 

Again, the doctrine of Karma (the accumulated 
record of character in the Indian philosophy) is 
already sufficiently contained in the formation of 



MASTER SPIRITS 1 99 

the soul-body, which is much more lasting than 
the physical body, and bears with it the impress 
and record of all past actions and experiences. 

The question of immortality can hardly be dis- 
cussed without some reference to the higher com- 
manding entities which may possibly exist or be 
gradually evolved in the soul-world, and whose 
existence might conceivably produce some marked 
effect upon this earth-world. Even here there is an 
enormous difference between the power of the highest 
intellect and the power of the lowest. If there is 
anything certain in human development, it is that 
men are not born " free and equal." Their degree 
of freedom varies within very wide limits, and no 
two individuals are equally endowed except as 
regards, perhaps, their physical organism in its 
general outlines. Yet the desire for freedom and 
equality is not without its proper satisfaction. For, 
if anything is clear from the line of reasoning we 
have followed, it is that man has a certain definite 
freedom of choice within narrow limits imposed by 
the worlds next above and next below his own. 
Within those limits he is absolutely free, and his 
power is equal to that of any other entity, however 
much higher in the scale of being than himself. 
We have seen that each plane of being carries on 
its own type of life independently of all others, 
within the limits already referred to. The tree 
lives its own life, and the birds on its boughs live 



200 THE WIDER PROBLEMS OF IMMORTALITY 

theirs. The supra-entity in whose blood our 
galactic system is a single corpuscle effects his 
mighty purpose independently of our puny will, 
and we in turn effect ours in utter indifference 
to his. 

That there are kingly souls in the soul-world, just 
as there are on earth, we must naturally expect. 
For aught we know, their ascendency may be more 
pronounced than any ascendency we find on earth. 
And if any large invasion of the earth-world is ever 
carried out from above, we may well assume it to 
be planned and carried out by some commander-in- 
chief of the soul- world. But such organised invasions 
would naturally be rare, and would become rarer as 
civilisation proceeded and as we obtained a firmer 
grip upon our own earth-conditions. 

This world of ours is " worth fighting for," as 
Cromwell said of Ireland. It is one of many worlds. 
It may not be the best of all possible worlds, but it 
is ours, and we are to blame for any lack of per- 
fection. It is our business so to order it that it 
may reach our highest conceivable ideal of perfec- 
tion. Since that task cannot be accomplished in a 
life-time, we must see that those who come after us 
have that ideal always before them, and have the 
strength to work towards it. The earth-world is 
lying there before us, ready to be moulded to our 
will. We are given powers of life and death over 
the animal and plant worlds. We can, and do, 



MANS SUPREMACY ON EARTH 201 

alter the face of the land and the sweep of the 
coast. There is no limit to our mechanical powers, 
to our organisations, to the amount of matter, 
living or dead, which we may press into service. 
Surely such liberty brings with it tremendous 
responsibilities. And how can we put the blame 
on any shoulders but our own when anything is 
amiss ? If there is pain, is not the world full of 
anodynes ? If there is poverty, is there not untold 
wealth lying unclaimed ; is there not the delight of 
service which relieves distress ? If there is death, 
where is its terror ? For death is but the transition 
to a more subtle and intense life, in which again we 
have the choice between serving and governing, with 
its attendant alternatives of a light-hearted loyalty 
and sombre responsibility. Even if we are weary of 
life, and of all the struggle and the turmoil of it, 
we have the option of a surrender of our indivi- 
duality, of a sinking into the bosom of the All and 
One, of the merging of all that makes up our Selves 
in the ocean of life, where it will assume a myriad 
new forms, each guarding some echo and faint 
tradition of that Ego which once walked this earth 
through storm and stress. 

A fair world is ours now, and a fairer world awaits 
us beyond. Here on earth the flowers bloom for 
us, the trees wave their branches, the winds sigh, 
and the birds sing. A soul dwells in every tree, a 
mystic and dreamy soul, a soul half merged in that 



202 THE WIDER PROBLEMS OF IMMORTALITY 

ocean of life whither many of us may tread our 
weary way as a last refuge some day. The green 
republic of the leaves lift up their faces towards the 
upper air and the sun, whence they have their 
sustenance and strength. The wide expanse of 
plain and mountain harbours endless forms of life, 
a thin film of existence emerging from the solid 
ground and merging imperceptibly into the ether 
above. In all this fulness of life the joy outweighs 
the sorrow, the progress surpasses the decay. 

Then whither have our terrors fled ? We find 
them neither in this world nor the next. In this 
world we have the comradeship of man to fight our 
battles with us and for us. In the next we have 
the comradeship of all mankind that went before us 
to prepare the way, and the same friends, perhaps, 
who welcomed us into this world will greet us on 
our transition thither. In all worlds present or to 
come, we have the sustaining power of the great 
Centre and Origin of all life, of God the Father 
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, who never 
more will appear as an angry Judge, half repentant 
of having created us, but as the source of all life and 
all joy, the equally loving cherisher of all that lives 
and all that exists, in whom and through whom we 
are, and by whose strength and warrant we, too, 
have almighty powers. 



PART III 

CHAPTER I 

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

The recent history of psychology has marked a 
gradual extension of the science into regions for- 
merly regarded as non-scientific, or as unworthy of 
the name of science. The old introspective school 
has been powerfully affected by the recent science 
of experimental psychology on the one hand and by 
mental pathology on the other. The psycho-physi- 
ological laboratory and the lunatic asylum have 
been the mines from which the richest treasures 
of psychological science have recently been obtained. 
The galvanometer and the chronograph have con- 
verted psychology to some extent into a quanti- 
tative science, and, on the other hand, the human 
mind, studied in its more abnormal and aberrant 
aspects, has revealed properties of which the older 
psychology was entirely unaware. The discredited 
art of " mesmerism " has been revived and codified, 
if not sanctified, under the new and more respectable 
name of " hypnotism " by Braid at Manchester and 
Charcot at the Paris Salpetriere, who conclusively 



204 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

established the extraordinary sway which one mind 
may obtain over the mind of another, and even over 
the body of another, down to its most elementary 
and essential organic functions. Hypnotism is now 
part of the regular curriculum of the medical pro- 
fession, and has almost completely disappeared from 
the popular stage. Its dangers are well recognised 
and guarded against, and its curative powers are 
being more and more extensively utilised. 

We may anticipate that the fate of hypnotism 
will be shared in the near future by many other 
" occult " realms of knowledge, such as animal 
" magnetism," telepathy, and spiritism. These 
comprise a large body of real or alleged observa- 
tions of a particularly obscure and difficult nature, 
which are not yet accepted by the bulk of repre- 
sentatives of official science, but are gradually being 
sifted and ranged in order, and will no doubt be 
the commonplaces of science by the middle of this 
century. 

In the present work we are moving necessarily 
so much on the borderland of the Known that it 
would be more than foolish to ignore these new 
facts simply because they do not yet form legiti- 
mate subjects for discussion, say, at the meetings 
of the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science. Moreover, this book does not work under 
the limitations of a college text-book. It is not 
bound to give only that which is generally accepted. 



ROOM FOR NEW FACTS 205 

It has to take its facts wherever it can find them, 
and the less " accepted " they are, the more light 
are they calculated to shed on the obscure problems 
hero dealt with — problems whose very obscurity 
shows how far official science is from furnishing a 
solution for them. 

There is also another consideration. The facts 
which have been sufficiently authenticated to be 
here utilised are, as a rule, not officially accepted, 
simply because they Jit into no accepted theory. If the 
facts are facts, the obvious conclusion is not that 
we must ignore them, but that we must alter our 
theories to suit them. Now the theory sketched 
out in what has been already written contains all 
the modifications necessary, not only to fit in the 
facts of the " new psychology," but also a host' of 
traditions of bygone times which have been dis- 
credited solely by being out of harmony with the 
prevailing trend of modern thought. 

Let us briefly resume the theory of the human 
individual developed in the preceding chapters : — 

1. An individual is a permanent organisation 
consisting of an infinite number of living entities, 
graded in a " hierarchy " ranging from the most 
vital and essential to the least vital and least 
indispensable. 

2. The most vital entities in this hierarchy are 
those which have the most powerful determining 
action upon the life processes. They are also 



206 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

those which are most permanently essential to 
the organisation. 

3. At death, the most vital entities, down to a 
certain order of vitality, are detached from the 
body, which then falls a prey to other entities. 
The entities thus disembodied are here termed 
psychomeres or soul-particles. Together they make 
up the soul-body, or, in short, the soul. 

4. The psychomeres are estimated to weigh 
not more than one-thousandth, nor less than one- 
millionth, of the total weight of the body. 

5. Their disembodiment is undiscoverable by 
weighing the body in air, as their weight in air 
is zero. 

6. The soul-body contains all the memories, 
organic and social, of the individual. It is more 
mobile and plastic than the physical body, and 
therefore capable of a more exalted and vivid 
type of existence. 

7. The soul-body is probably held together by 
electrostatic forces. 

8. The soul-body retains its power of assuming 
any shape desired, and may, under exceptional 
conditions, reconstruct for itself a physical body. 

9. The abode of the departed souls is the earth's 
atmosphere. 

10. The normal shape of the soul-body some- 
what resembles a flame, and is of about the same 
tenuity. 



A SUMMARY 207 

11. The number of psychomeres constituting an 
individual may be roughly estimated at a trillion 
(10 18 ). 

12. A certain proportion of the psychomeres 
are temporarily detachable from the physical body 
even during the life-time of the latter. 

13. The psychomeres of a lost limb, &c, return 
to the organism of the individual on the death of 
the limb. 

14. The birth of a new human being is due to 
the conjunction of two psychomeres derived from 
opposite sexes. These psychomeres are then lost 
to the parent individuals. 

15. Death is necessitated by the overcharging of 
the psychomeres with permanent structures, formed 
for the purpose of simplifying life processes. 

16. The immortality of the individual is not 
absolute, but depends upon the development of 
his individual consciousness and upon his utility 
to a superior organisation. Death in general does 
not tend to destroy the individual, but to enhance 
his individuality. 

1 7. All individuals of any order are organisations 
of individuals of lower orders, down to the infini- 
tesimal. Individuals of all orders below the range 
of our analysis are regarded by us as " dead matter." 

18. The laws of "matter" (the laws of Nature) 
are the aggregate of the social or organic laws of all 
individuals of orders below our range of analysis. 



208 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

19. All individuals of whatever order are con- 
nected with the Universal Centre of Life, and are 
thus ultimately connected with each other. 

This scheme, which contains no very startling 
assumptions, accounts in a simple manner for the 
phenomena of both normal and abnormal psychology. 
It puts psychology on a sound logical basis, beyond 
the reach of destructive materialism. It abolishes 
the dualism of mind and matter, putting in its 
place what might be called a spiritual monism. It 
makes life the fundamental reality of the universe, 
and reduces physical death to a kind of " moult," a 
freeing of the individual from a worn-out piece of 
machinery built up by himself. It vitalises biology 
by reducing life processes to the known (viz. the 
phenomena of consciousness) instead of putting 
them back into the unknown recesses of atomic 
matter. Finally, it gives a reasonable working 
hypothesis of a future life, based upon well-known 
physical and physiological principles, which en- 
ables us not only to classify and explain a large 
number of hitherto isolated observations, but 
also to predict new ones capable of future veri- 
fication. 

We shall, in what follows, attempt to bring 
within our range the following abnormal or super- 
normal phenomena, variously classified as hypnotic, 
" magnetic," magic, subliminal, spiritualistic, mete- 
therial, mediumistic, or occult : — 



ABNORMAL PHENOMENA 209 

a. The temporary withdrawal of the soul-body 
(" double," or " astral " body) during earth-life. 

b. The temporary duplication of parts of the 
body (cf. Davenport Brothers, Stainton Moses, 
Eusapia Paladino). 

c. Observations of withdrawal at or near death. 

d. Materialised spirit-forms. 

e. Luminous metapsychic phenomena. 

/. Mechanical phenomena of modern spiritualism 
(telekinesis). 

g. Phenomena of control and possession (auto- 
matism). 

h. Externalisation of sensation (telesthesia). 

i. Thought-transference (telepathy). 

j. Psychological exaltation (ecstasy, prophecy, 
genius). 

h. Retrocognition (" psychometry ") and haunting 
(apparitions). 

I. Hypnotism (animal "magnetism") and sugges- 
tion (psycho-therapeutics). 

These phenomena are classified in a different 
manner by Rector Boirac of Dijon. 1 He dis- 
tinguishes three orders of phenomena : — 

1. Hypnoid. — Phenomena which are apparently 
explained by the forces already known, if we 
suppose that under certain conditions these forces 
act according to laws which we do not know yet, 

1 See La Psychologie Inconnuc, par Emile Boirac. Felix Alcau : 
Paris, 1908. 

O 



2IO THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

and which may be very different from the known 
laws. 

2. Magnetoid.- — Phenomena apparently explicable 
by hitherto unknown forces or agents distinct from 
those which science has already discovered and 
studied, but which, we may add, belong normally 
to our world, and are comprised within that per- 
manent set of forces and agents which we call 
" nature." 

3. Spiritoid. — Phenomena which seem to imply 
the intervention of forces which, though not indeed 
" supernatural," are extra-natural, not belonging 
normally to our world, but making in some way 
sudden incursions into the realms of nature from 
some plane of existence foreign to the plane in 
which we move. 

Boirac himself admits that this classification 
must be regarded as provisional only, and that 
there is a likelihood of class 3 being reduced to a 
special case of class 1 or class 2. 

We are not disposed to postulate any super- 
natural or even extra-natural forces. It is, in fact, 
unscientific to postulate these except as a last resort, 
when all other attempts at explanation fail. 

Besides, the term " force " has been greatly 
abused in this connection. It is a term belonging 
to physics, and means that which produces a dis- 
placement or acceleration of matter. It is not a 
satisfactory term. It is so vague and " meta- 



"FORCE 211 

physical " that physicists have lately used it very 
sparingly, or have even attempted to discard it 
altogether. As a rule, one can distinguish a good 
work on physics from a bad one partly by the 
frequency with which the word " force " is used, and 
its use in books on psychology is often a sign of 
faulty reasoning or a loose terminology. To talk 
about the " conduction of magnetic force " is quite 
meaningless, and has no analogy anywhere in 
physics, and when we find the same force described 
as a " fluid," we reach the height of absurdity. 
Neither electricity nor magnetism are " forces." 
The former is, indeed, a fluid, and can be conducted. 
The latter is not a fluid, but a mode of motion of 
electricity, and can not be conducted. There is, of 
course, electrostatic force, and magnetic force, and 
electrodynamic force, but these can only be propa- 
gated across space (with the velocity of light), 
and cannot be conducted. Their nature is quite 
unknown ; and there is nothing to indicate any 
" fluidic " constitution for them. 

The forces governing biological processes are just 
as unknown as those which produce, say, the levi- 
tation of a table. Cohesion, chemical affinity, and 
the forces governing crystalline and colloid aggrega- 
tions are on the very borderland of physical science 
as far as their " explanation " is concerned. We 
can only state that such and such changes take 
place under suitable conditions. We have not got 



212 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

even so far as to explain why a stretched wire 
holds together. We cannot yet reduce its cohesion 
to known " forces," though there is every probability 
that cohesive force is electrostatic rather than mag- 
netic or gravitational. If that must be admitted 
concerning such a familiar thing as a copper wire, 
what shall we say about the much more mysterious 
forces of chemistry and biology ? We may guess 
that chemical affinities are matters of electrostatics, 
but if we remember that the very structure of 
electricity has only been elucidated within the last 
ten years, we shall understand that we are only 
arguing from the altogether unknown to the very 
imperfectly known. 

And as regards the form or structure of atoms, 
we can only indulge in the very wildest guess-work. 
They may be, for aught we know, living species of a 
very low order, whose birth-rate and death-rate are 
too rapid to enable us to perceive anything but an 
apparent uniformity and lifelessness. 

If two such highly developed sciences as physics 
and chemistry utterly forsake us in investigating 
the small-scale phenomena of matter, what must be 
said of biology, which has hitherto relied for all its 
ultimate explanations upon those very sciences, two 
broken reeds in the dismal swamp of the unknown ! 

Known Forces ! There are no such things. We 
know that certain effects as a rule are observable 
under certain conditions. What produces those 



SPECIAL HYPOTHESIS 213 

effects ? Such and such forces. What are these 
forces ? They are that which produces such and 
such effects. We argue in a circle, and believe we 
are scientific. 

It is more legitimate to study, describe, and 
classify the effects, the uniformities observed in 
nature, to trace any observable analogies between 
physical and psychic occurrences, to deal as far as 
possible with simple facts and conditions, and to 
remain in the region of the known. Above all, we 
must refrain from " explaining " unusual phenomena 
with the help of highly speculative theories which 
happen to hold the field in any circumscribed 
science. The specialisation of modern research is 
such that every discipline has its own type of 
theory. The physicist deals in molecules or elec- 
trons, the chemist in atoms and stereochemical 
structures, the mineralogist in crystalline aggregates, 
solid or liquid, the physiologist in biogens and 
colloid substances, the astronomer in gravitating 
bodies. Those who can survey all these fields and 
unify them are few, and are becoming fewer. There 
is no inducement to generalise since the " specialist " 
holds the market. The wide sweep of a Newton is 
nowadays well-nigh impossible. 

It is safest, therefore, to take from every science 
its facts, and to look upon its theories as working 
hypotheses of very limited application. In psycho- 
logy it would be folly to reduce anything to matter 



214 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

and motion. Psychology must have its own funda- 
mental conceptions, its own units. And when we 
consider that psychology deals with more intimate 
and immediately knowable phenomena than any 
other science, it becomes evident that its reduction 
to physics or physiology is nothing but an abject 
and unworthy surrender. 

That mistake has not been committed by F. W. 
H. Myers, or by the other leaders and founders of 
the " new psychology." 

Myers, in his epoch-making work, 1 laid the 
foundation of a new psychological philosophy in 
which human faculties are presented to us in a 
wide perspective, ranging from the ordinary waking 
consciousness through the " subliminal " conscious- 
ness (the consciousness below the threshold) out to 
the universal or cosmic consciousness, the mind of 
the world-soul. 

In this scheme, ordinary waking (" supra-liminal ") 
memory comprises only a small fraction of the 
memory-tract really inherent in the individual. It 
is surrounded by regions of hypermnesia or exalted 
memory on one side, and by organic memory on the 
other, with a background of memories inherent in 
higher or lower orders of organisms. Sensation has 
similar annexes of hyperesthesia and telesthesia. 
Volition is flanked by self-suggestion and the 

1 "The Human Personality, and its Survival of Bodily Death." 
Longmans, London. 



MYERS 2 I 5 

superior control of matter, and ordinary foresight 
works on a background of subliminal or " instinc- 
tive " anticipations on the other hand, and sug- 
gestions and premonitions inflowing from the sea 
of life on the other. The past and future, im- 
perfectly surveyed by the individual, are clear and 
present to the world-soul, to which we are destined 
further and further to approximate. 

This magnificent scheme of human faculties is 
not based upon biological data, but upon the 
material accumulated by the Society for Psychical 
Research, and forms the most authoritative expo- 
sition and summary of the valuable data hitherto 
rendered available. The scheme as it stands repre- 
sents a minimum of new assumptions, and must be 
therefore described as possessing to an exceptional 
degree the scientific virtues of economy and con- 
tinuity. 

Our own scheme, while embodying that of Myers, 
will go a step farther. It will furnish a physical 
interpretation of the strata of consciousness. Instead 
of leaving them afloat in non-Euclidean space, it 
will locate them and bring them down to earth. 

Such a modification is, of course, exposed to the 
risk of refutation. It is more vulnerable than a 
purely psychological scheme. But that disadvant- 
age is amply compensated by the very living and 
graphic manner in which the various facts may be 
dealt with. Above all. it allows us to utilise the 



2l6 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 

facts and laws of physics and physiology, so far as 
they have been determined. We can come down 
to figures, and estimate and predict. Thus we are 
in a position to test our theory in the only manner 
which is finally convincing. 

We have already had occasion to distinguish 
between the " organic " and the " social " memory. 
The latter may be identified with the supraliminal 
memory of Myers. The subliminal strata will then 
be composed of the organic memory on the one 
hand (including the racial memoiw), and those 
illuminated memories which, in occasional flashes, 
pervade the whole structure of the individual. 
Du Prel 1 regards the organism itself as the " thres- 
hold," and, in accordance with this nomenclature, 
Professor Barrett 2 uses the word '■ supra-liminal " 
to denote those supernormal faculties which we 
have referred to as only exercised in earth-life in 
occasional flashes. Such faculties comprise the 
hyperboulia, hypermnesia, and hyperesthesia of 
Myers. They are implied in our view of the organic 
connection of the individual with individuals of 
higher planes, and with the Universal Centre of 
Life. 

The subliminal self is probably paramount in the 
phenomena of suggestion and curative hypnotism, 

1 "Philosophy of Mysticism," translated by C. C. Massey. 
Eedway, London, 1889. 

2 " On the Threshold of a New World of Thought." Kegan Paul, 
London. 1908. 



THE SUBLIMINAL 2 17 

in faith-healing, and in some forms of automatism. 
But in some directions the conception of the sub- 
liminal has been overworked. It has been made 
to do duty in many cases where it by no means 
offers the simplest explanation of the phenomena. 
That, of course, was natural so long as the old 
materialistic prejudice against human survival and 
the existence of extra-mundane intelligences re- 
mained in force. But now that we have arrived 
at a rational and intelligible view of death and 
survival, nothing would be gained by leaving out 
of consideration the manifold possibilities of dis- 
embodied intelligences acting upon our own world. 
We shall therefore be free to assume such action 
wherever it offers the " least resistance," and only 
if it does that. Our physical and quantitative 
data will enable us to discriminate in doubtful 
cases between the various probabilities, and if in 
any given case the " spirit hypothesis " is the 
simplest, we shall have no hesitation in applying 
it and working out its consequences. 



CHAPTER II 

THE STORY OF "KATIE KING" 

It will be useful at this stage to enter somewhat 
fully into the details of one of the most remarkable 
and best authenticated manifestations of super- 
normal activity on record. The story is thirty-four 
years old, but can be completely reconstructed from 
contemporary records, and its chief recorder, Sir 
William Crookes, F.R.S., is, happily, still alive, and 
ready, if necessary, to bear witness to its accuracy. 
It is the story of the frequent appearance of a 
materialised " spirit form " in various places in 
London, most usually in the presence of a " medium" 
of the name of Florence Cook, a girl of fourteen. 
The appearances took place from May 21, 1871, 
to May 21, 1874, a period of just three years. 
During the latter portion of this period the appear- 
ances were minutely studied by Mr. William Crookes, 
Mr. Cromwell Varley, F.R.S., Mr. S. C. Hall, Mr. 
J. C. Luxmoore, J. P., " Florence Marryat," Mr. 
W. H. Harrison, Editor of the Spiritualist, and other 
prominent people, who exhausted all their ingenuity 
in devising tests for the supernormal character of 
the phenomena. 

218 



FLORENCE COOK 219 

Some details of a biographical nature are given 
concerning Miss Florence Cook in Light of December 
15, 1894. She was at that time married to a 
Mr. Elgie Corner, and had several children. She 
died on April 22, 1904. 

We are told that her grandmother was given 
to seeing visions, and once lay in a trance which 
lasted for three weeks. Florence herself fell into 
occasional trances. Her first acquaintance with 
the physical phenomena of spiritualism was made 
during some table-tilting experiments with a school- 
fellow at Hackney, in which the table rose a clear 
four feet from the ground. At another sitting she 
was carried about on her chair by some abnormal 
means. Continuing the stances at home, she was 
instructed by raps to proceed to the house of 
Thomas Blyton, at Dalston, the secretary of a 
small group of spiritualists, through whom she was 
introduced to a number of people interested in the 
phenomena, which were at that time attracting 
considerable attention in London. Acting on their 
advice, she had regular sittings in her own family, 
the kitchen being curtained off to form a dark 
" cabinet " for her, while the family sat outside on 
the stairs. Under these circumstances she was 
" controlled " by an entity who called herself Katie 
King, and later on " Annie Morgan," and who en- 
deavoured to peep out through the curtain while 
Florence was lying in a trance inside. As no such 



2 20 KATIE KING 

control took place when the medium sat in the 
light, the arrangements were improved by con- 
structing a wooden cabinet large enough to hold 
Florence seated on a chair, with a window near the 
top through which faces could be shown. 

These stances went on for some time, gradually 
developing in elaboration and the degree of illumi- 
nation, the form of Katie King eventually gaming 
sufficient power to emerge completely from the 
cabinet. After all precautions had been taken to 
prevent Miss Cook impersonating the figure, it 
remained to be shown that its appearance was 
not due to a collective hallucination of the 
company. This was done on May 7, 1873, by 
photographing the figure by magnesium light. 
The following is the full account of this achieve- 
ment, as published in the Spiritualist of May 
15, 1873:— 

"PHOTOGRAPHING A SPIRIT BY THE 
MAGNESIUM LIGHT 

" A series of sittings has been held recently in the 
presence of responsible witnesses, to photograph 
the spirit ' Katie King,' who of late has been 
temporarily materialising herself so frequently 
through the non-professional mediumship of Miss 
Florence Cook. The efforts of the experimentalists 
have been successful, and the large engraving on 



PHOTOGRAPHIC TEST 22 1 

the next page is about as faithful a copy as wood- 
cutting can give, of one of the photographs obtained 
on Wednesday night, last week. In the photo- 
graph itself the features are more detailed and 
beautiful, and there is an expression of dignity and 
etheriality in the face, which is not fully represented 
in the engraving, which, however, has been executed 
as nearly as possible with scientific accuracy, by an 
artist of great professional skill. 

" The following account of the principal stance, 
signed by all the witnesses, is rather more lengthy 
than the average of such documents, as it was 
thought that the extreme novelty and interest of 
the operations made it desirable that the particulars 
should be given somewhat in detail : — 

" We, the undersigned, have attended a series of 
four special stances recently held at the residence 
of Mr. Henry Cook, of Hackney, for the purpose of 
obtaining photographs of the materalised form of 
the spirit, ' Annie Morgan,' commonly known as 
Katie King, who manifests through the medium- 
ship of Miss Florence Cook. The most successful 
sitting was held on the evening of Wednesday, 
the 7th instant. 

" Katie can now manifest in full form by day- 
light ; but it being found that the ordinary light 
in the stance room (descriptions of which, and of 
the cabinet, have been given in former numbers of 



2 22 KATIE KING 

the Spiritualist) was not well adapted for photo- 
graphic purposes, it was resolved by Mr. Harrison, 
who volunteered to do the photographing, to darken 
the room, and use the magnesium light. At the 
earlier stances Katie could only come out of the 
cabinet and bear the glare of the magnesium light 
for a few seconds at a time, once or twice during 
the sSance ; she had to go back quickly into the 
cabinet to gather fresh power from her medium, 
saying that the strong and unaccustomed brilliancy 
of the light made her ' melt quite away.' But 
gradually she became more and more used to it, 
and at the sSance now referred to, no less than four 
photographs were taken. It is from one of the 
best of these that the engraving is copied. 

" The cabinet doors were placed open, and shawls 
hung across, as on previous occasions already 
described. The sdancc commenced at six p.m., and 
lasted about two hours, with an interval of half- 
an-hour. The medium was entranced almost 
directly she was placed in the cabinet, and in a 
few minutes Katie stepped out into the room. The 
circle being most harmonious, conditions were ex- 
ceptionally good. The sitters, in addition to the 
undersigned, were Mrs. Cook and their two youngest 
children, whose delight at Katie's familiarity with 
them was most amusing. Katie was dressed in 
pure white, as previously described in the Spiritualist, 
except that her robe was cut low, with short sleeves, 




Portrait op "Katie King" 

Taken May 7, 1873, by magnesium light. Reproduced 

from a woodcut in the Spiritualist of May 15, 1873 



GOOD CONDITIONS 223 

allowing her beautiful neck and arms to be seen. 
Her head-dress was occasionally pushed back so as 
to allow her hair (which was brown) to be distinctly- 
visible. Her eyes were large and bright, of a dark 
blue or grey colour. Her countenance was animated 
and lifelike, her cheeks and lips ruddy and clear. 
Our expressions of pleasure at seeing her thus before 
us seemed to encourage her to redouble her efforts 
to give a good stance. By the light of a candle and 
a small lamp, during the intervals of photography, 
she stood or moved about, and chattered to us all, 
keeping up a lively conversation, in which she 
criticised the sitters, and the literary photographer 
and his arrangements very freely. By degrees she 
walked away from the cabinet and came boldly out 
into the room. A camera slide being overlooked, 
she walked up to a table where it was some distance 
away, and placed her hand on it. The door of the 
stance room was open all the while, in order that 
the plates might be taken out and developed in the 
adjoining kitchen. The window was opened several 
times to admit fresh air (and with it the twilight) 
after each ignition of the magnesium. The photo- 
grapher and some of the circle were occasionally 
moving about, but nothing seemed to interfere with 
the good conditions, or stop the manifestations in 
any way. Mr. Cook (who arrived late from the 
City) and the servant Mary, having called out from 
the kitchen that they would like to see what was 



224 KATIE KING 

going on, Katie bade theni stand outside the door 
and look in, which they did nearly the whole of the 
stance. Katie usually leaned on the shoulder of 
Mr. Luxmoore, and stood up to be focussed several 
times ; on one occasion holding the hand lamp to 
illuminate her face. Once she looked at the sitters 
through that gentleman's eye-glass, patted his head 
and pulled his hair, allowed him and Mrs. Corner 
to pass their hands over her dress, in order that 
they might satisfy themselves that she wore only 
one robe. As one of the plates was taken out of 
the room for development, she ran a few feet out of 
the cabinet after Mr. Harrison, saying she wished to 
see it ; and on his return it was shown to her, he 
standing close to and touching her at this time. 
While he was absent, she walked up to the camera, 
and inspected ' that queer machine,' as she termed 
it. Just before one of the plates was taken, as 
Katie was reposing herself outside the cabinet, a 
long, sturdy, masculine right arm, bare to the 
shoulder, and moving its fingers, was thrust out of 
the opening at the top of the cabinet through which 
the faces are shown. Katie turned round and up- 
braided the intruder ; saying, that ' it was a shame 
for another spirit to interpose while she stood for 
her likeness,' and she bade him ' get out.' ToAvards 
the close of the seance, Katie said her power was 
going, and that she was ' really melting away this 
time.' The power being weak the admission of 



PRECAUTIONS 225 

light into the cabinet seemed gradually to destroy 
the lower part of her figure, and she sank down 
until her neck touched the floor, the rest of her 
body having apparently vanished, her last words 
being that we must sing, and sit still for a few 
minutes, ' for it was a sad thing to have no legs to 
stand upon.' This was done, and Katie soon came 
out again entire as at first, and one more photo- 
graph was successfully taken. Katie then shook 
hands with Mr. Luxmoore, went inside her cabinet, 
and rapped for us to take the medium out. The 
only stipulation Katie made throughout was, that 
the sitters would not stare fixedly at her whilst she 
stood for her photograph. 

" The stance was given under stringent test con- 
ditions. Before commencing, Mrs. and Miss Corner 
took the medium to her bedroom, and having taken 
off her clothes, and thoroughly searched them, 
dressed her without a gown, but simply with a 
cloak of dark grey waterproof cloth over her under- 
clothing, and at once led her to the stance room, 
where her wrists were tied tightly together with 
tape. The knots were examined by the sitters 
respectively, and sealed with a signet ring. She 
was then seated in the cabinet, which had been 
previously examined. The tape was passed through 
a brass bracket in the floor, brought under the 
shawl, and tied securely to a chair outside the 
cabinet, so that the slightest movement on the 

p 



2 26 KATIE KING 

part of the medium would have been at once 
detected. 

" During the interval of half-an-hour Mrs. Corner 
took charge of the medium whilst she was out of 
the cabinet, and did not lose sight of her for one 
minute. The tying and sealing were repeated 
before the second part of the stance, and on each 
occasion of the medium leaving the cabinet, the 
knots, and seals, and tape, were duly examined by 
all the sitters before the tape was cut, and were 
found intact. The medium was tied and sealed by 
Mr. Luxmoore, whose signet ring was used. 

" Amelia Corner, 3 St. Thomas's Square, Hackney. 
Caroline Corner, 3 St. Thomas's Square, Hackney. 
J. C. Luxmoore, 16 Gloucester Square, Hyde Park. 
G. P. Tapp, 18 Queen Margaret's Grove, Milclmay 

Park, London, N. 
William H. Harrison, Wilmin Villa, Chaucer Road, 
Heme Hill. 

" Mr. Luxmoore has favoured us with the following 
letter : — 



" To the Editor of the ' Spiritualist ' 

" Sir, — In the communication which you were 
good enough to publish on the 1st inst., I hinted 
that I was not without hope that in your next 
number I should be able to relate ' some additional 



MR. LUXMOORES ACCOUNT 227 

facts which our opponents will find a little difficult to 
digest/ and I am happy to say that hope, in this 
instance, has not been blighted by disappointment. 
We have long had the wish to get a photograph of 
Katie, she having promised to do all in her power 
to assist us. On Monday, the 5 th inst., we had 
what Katie facetiously called ' a dress rehearsal,' 
for the purpose of photographing her while she was 
materialised. The difficulties attending the photo- 
graphic process were very great, but these you will, 
I am quite sure, explain much better than I can. 
I will only mention that we were entirely de- 
pendent on magnesium powder for light. On 
this first occasion the funnel through which the 
magnesium powder had to pass, had too small an 
orifice, and it was consequently choked. We ob- 
tained faint pictures, which, perhaps, were as much 
as we could expect on a first trial. 

" On Wednesday, the 7th, having gained much 
experience from the rehearsal, our efforts were 
rewarded by what I may venture to call a great 
success, as I think will be admitted by all who 
see the engraving which I hope you will be 
able to publish in the number of the 15 th 
instant. 

" The sitting was under strict test conditions. Miss 
Cook was, just before the seance commenced, taken 
into her bedroom and carefully searched by Mrs. 
and Miss Corner, in order to ascertain that she had 



228 



KATIE KING 





Fig. 2. 



nothing concealed about her, and from that time, to 
the final close of the photographing, she was not, for 
one minute, out of Mrs. Corner's sight, 
except while in the cabinet. Miss 
Cook's hands, A, Fig. 2, were firmly 
tied together with tape, which was 
then passed through a piece of brass, 
B, fixed with two screws to the floor 
(the heads of these screws, D D, were 
sealed so that no screw-driver could 
be used), and then, round my chair, 
beyond E. To make doubly sure, I 
tied the tape in a knot at B, before 
passing it out of the cabinet to my 
All knots, except the last (B), were sealed, 
that being unnecessary, as the tape was not severed 
at this point. To those who know how these stances 
are conducted, I need scarcely add that on this and 
all other occasions when tests are used, the seals 
are, when Miss Cook comes out of the cabinet, 
found to be quite perfect. The distance from her 
hands to the floor, when tied, was eighteen inches, 
so that it was absolutely impossible that she could 
stand upright, or, indeed, lift herself more than a 
very small distance from the low chair in which 
she sat. Katie stood perfectly erect, and is taller 
than Miss Cook — indeed, altogether, a much larger 
figure. She rested her elbow on my shoulder 
while some of the photographs were being taken. 



chair. 



--- 



MR. LUXMOORES ACCOUNT 229 

This was done to insure her keeping quite still 
(no little difficulty for any one to do, when, suddenly, 
such a light as that produced by magnesium, is 
thrown on them). I, perhaps, should have stated 
that Katie was in her usual white robe, with a 
portion of her neck bare. If the above are not 
test conditions, I confess myself unable to say what 
would be considered satisfactory. This seance is 
certainly the best I have ever seen. Katie walked 
in full light some feet out of the cabinet, turned 
round, and allowed us to see her back. Her arms, 
hands, and feet were bare, and, certainly, no tape 
was to be seen. The tests were in accordance with 
Katie's strict orders. She refused to be photo- 
graphed unless her directions were obeyed ; and I 
must add that I think she was quite right, know- 
ing, as I do, the unfair (I might use stronger 
language) treatment mediums are subjected to. 
Evidence which would be deemed sufficient to 
prove anything else is often utterly ignored where 
Spiritualism is concerned. 

" On reperusal, I find I have omitted to state that 
I carefully examined every part of the cabinet while 
Miss Cook was being searched by Mrs. and Miss 
Corner. Nothing could possibly have been con- 
cealed there without my discovering it. I should 
also mention, that soon after one of the photographs 
had been taken, Katie pulled back the curtain, or 
rather rug, which hangs in front, and requested us 



230 KATIE KING 

to look at her, when she appeared to have lost all 
her body. She had a most curious appearance ; 
she seemed to be resting on nothing but her neck, 
her head being close to the floor. Her white robe 
was under her. 

"J. C. LUXMOORE. 

" 16 Gloucester Square, 
" Hyde Park, W. 

" Mr. Luxmoore's tying and sealing is efficient and 
secure ; as a nautical man, who spends much of his 
time annually in his yacht, he knows how to tie 
knots. After tying Miss Cook's wrists together with 
tape, he seals the knots between the wrists, very 
close to the skin, with his signet ring. On Wed- 
nesday, May 7, the tape was sufficiently tight 
about the wrists to leave marks all round. 

" Mr. Harrison makes the following statement 
about the photographic operations : — 

" Many conditions had to be complied with to 
secure successful results. A harmonious circle was 
necessary, that the medium might be at ease, free 
from all care and anxiety, in order that the mani- 
festations should be given with the greater power. 
It was necessary that the medium should not sit 
too frequently, and have little to do at other times 
so as to reserve power and vital energy for the 
stances. In short, all the conditions which Spiritual- 



MR. HARRISONS ACCOUNT 23 I 

ists know to favour good manifestations were 
supplied as nearly as possible. 

" The cabinet being in one of the corners of a 
room in the basement of the house, the light is too 
weak, and not in the best direction for photographic 
purposes. For the same reason, that spirits can 
always handle old musical instruments better than 
new ones, and that the manifestations are usually 
stronger after a medium has lived for some time in 
the house, it was not desirable to make a new 
cabinet, the old one being well charged with those 
imponderable emanations from the medium, of 
which science at present knows nothing. It was, 
therefore, thought desirable to use the old cabinet, 
and to do the photographing by the magnesium 
light. 

" Magnesium ribbon Avill not ignite readily at a 
desired moment, and sometimes goes out unex- 
pectedly, so would be liable to cause many failures. 
As both materialised spirit forms and photographic 
plates, deteriorate rapidly after they are prepared in 
perfection, it was necessary to have a light which 
should not fail at a critical moment. 

"Accordingly magnesium powder mixed Avith 
sand was used, on the principle devised by Mr. 
Henry Larkins. A narrow deal board A B, Fig. 3, 
three feet long, was nailed to the base-board D E, 
and firmly held in a vertical position by the sup- 
port H. A Bunsen's burner, K N, to consume gas 



232 



KATIE KING 



mixed Avith common air, was fixed horizontally 
through the vertical board, and an india-rubber 
tube, D K, supplied the burner 
with common gas. The end of 
the funnel, W, was thus in the 
gas-flame F. When some mag- 
nesium powder and sand were 
poured into W they fell in a great 
stream, which caught fire at N, 
and burnt between N and B, in a 
great flame of dazzling brilliancy. 
The larger the proportion of 
magnesium in the powder, the 




B s 



Fig. 3. 



longer was the flame, and the 



best results were obtained with a 
flame averaging two feet in length, and lasting for 
five or six seconds. Sometimes the flame was so 
long as to scorch the base-board at B, and it set 
fire to it there once or twice. 

" As might be expected, there has been more 
success as yet in obtaining positives than negatives, 
as a shorter exposure will do for the former. The 
ordinary processes were used — namely, a thirty-five 
grain nitrate of silver bath, and proto-sulphate of 
iron development. Mawson's collodion. A half- 
plate camera and lens were used, with a stop 
rather less than an inch in diameter, between the 
front and back combinations of the lens. 

l< Materialised spirits always complain that the 




A Photograph of "Katie King" 
Taken in the presence of Dr. Gully 



ALLEGED EXPOSURE 233 

gaze of observers pains thein, and so does a strong 
light ; this is one reason why we have so much of 
musical instruments playing under instead of over 
tables, at stances, and why direct spirit writing is 
rarely obtained under the direct gaze of observers. 
Consequently, after Katie had ' posed ' herself by 
ordinary light, she insisted that all the observers 
should turn their eyes from her during the few 
seconds the magnesium was burning." 

On May 12, four more positives Avere taken under 
similar circumstances. 

The question of the identity of Florence Cook 
and Katie King was repeatedly raised in the ensuing 
newspaper controversies, and was put to a somewhat 
extraordinary test on December 9, 1873, at Mr. 
Cook's house. A Mr. Volckman grasped the appari- 
tion round the waist and tried to throw her down 
with his feet. " Katie " extricated herself and went 
back to the cabinet, and Volckman was seized and 
ejected. The occurrence, which has since often 
been repeated on similar occasions, threw grave 
doubts on the bona fides of the medium, in spite of 
the precautions of tying, &c. A few days after- 
wards, Miss Cook requested Mr. William Crookes 
to examine the phenomena under more strictly 
scientific conditions. An elaborate investigation 
was then undertaken by Crookes, which extended 
over five months, and which completely established 



2 34 KATIE KING 

the separate identity of the medium and the 
materialised form. 

One method of doing this was an electrical one, 
described by Mr. Varley as follows : l — 

"ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTS WITH 
MISS COOK WHEN ENTRANCED. 

"By Cromwell F. Varley, F.R.S. 

" The experiments in question were made at the 
house of Mr. J. C. Luxmoore, J.P., 16 Gloucester 
Square, Hyde Park, W. The back drawing-room 
was separated from the front by a thick curtain, to 
exclude the light of the front room from the back 
room, which was used as a dark cabinet. The doors 
of the dark room were locked, and the room searched 
before the sdance began. The front room was illu- 
minated by a shaded paraffin lamp turned low. 
The galvanometer used in the experiment was 
placed on the mantelpiece ten or eleven feet from 
the curtains. The following observers were present : 
Mr. Luxmoore, Mr. William Crookes, F.R.S. , Mrs. 
Crookes, Mrs. Cook, Mr. G. R. Tapp, Mr. Harrison, 
and myself. Mr. Crookes sat close to the curtain 
on one side, and Mr. Luxmoore on the other. 

"Miss Cook was placed in an arm-chair, in the 
room which was subsequently to serve as a darkened 
cabinet. Two sovereigns, to which platinum wires 

1 The Spiritualist, March 20, 1874. 



THE ELECTRICAL TEST 235 

had been soldered, were attached one to each of 
her arms a little above her wrists, by means of 
elastic rings. Between the sovereigns and the skin 
three layers of thick white blotting paper, moistened 
with solution of nitrate of ammonia, were placed. 
The platinum wires were attached to her arms, and 
led up to her shoulders, so as to allow of the free 
movement of her limbs. To each platinum wire 
was attached a thin cotton-covered copper wire, 
which led into the light room, where the sitters 
were to be located. Thick curtains separated the 
two rooms, so as to leave Miss Cook in the dark 
when the curtains were down. 

" The conducting wires were connected with the 
two cells of a Daniell's battery, and a regular cable- 
testing apparatus. When all was ready the back 
room was darkened, the current passing through 
the body of the medium the whole evening. 

<c The batteries had been newly charged, and by 
tests made before and after the seance, they were 
found not to have varied more than 1 per cent. 
The current through the medium diminished gradu- 
ally, excepting at certain times stated further on, 
in consequence of the drying of the blotting- 
paper, which increased the resistance between the 
sovereigns and the skin. 

" Mr. W. H. Harrison, who was present, recorded 
the readings and my remarks, and timed them with 
a chronometer, as I, from time to time, dictated. 



236 KATIE KING 

The current from the two cells flowed through the 
galvanometer, the resistance cells, and Miss Cook, 
then back to the battery. The electrical resistance 
of the body of the medium produced 220 divisions 
on the scale of the reflecting galvanometer at seven 
o'clock, and when the two sovereigns were united, 
it gave a deflection of 300 divisions. The blotting 
paper dried gradually, and at 7.17 p.m. the deflec- 
tion had fallen to 1.97 divisions. 

" Prior to the medium being entranced, she was 
requested to move her hands about, which, by vary- 
ing the amount of metallic surface in actual contact 
with the paper and skin, produced deflections of 
from 15 to 30 divisions, and sometimes more ; con- 
sequently, if, during the stance, she moved her 
hands at all, the fact was instantly rendered visible 
by the galvanometer. In fact, Miss Cook took the 
place of a telegraph cable under electrical test. 

" In the course of the evening, the following read- 
ings were obtained and remarks recorded. The 
current was not interrupted an instant during the 
whole stance. Had the circuit been broken for only 
one-tenth of a second, the galvanometer would have 
moved over 200 divisions. 

" I was placed at the end of the table ten or 
eleven feet from the curtain, and only once was I 
allowed to go nearer, viz., a minute or two before 
the seance was over. 

" Our room being dimly illuminated, my eyes 



MR. VARLTCYS ACCOUNT 237 

were rendered less sensitive than those of the other 
observers, because I was for the greater part of the 
time closely watching the bright reflected image 
from the galvanometer, but when I looked at Katie 
the lamp was for a few seconds turned up to let 
me have a better view. Katie was much like the 
medium, Miss Cook, and I said to her, ' You look 
exactly like your medium.' She said, ' Yeth, 
yeth ! ' I was therefore very anxious to see if, 
when she moved her hands and arms, any variation 
took place in the strength of the electric current ; 
sometimes there was a variation ; at others, viz., 
when she opened and closed her fist, and also when 
she was writing there was no variation. 

" Towards the close of the stance the room was 
darkened, and Katie allowed me to approach her. 
She then let me grasp her hand ; it was a long one, 
very cold and clammy. A minute or two after- 
wards, Katie told me to go into the dark chamber 
to detrance Miss Cook. I found her in a deep 
trance, huddled together in her easy- chair, her 
head lying upon her left shoulder, her right hand 
hanging down. Her hand was small, warm, 
and dry, and not long, cold, and clammy like 
Katie's. 

" In the course of two or three minutes she came 
out of the trance, when Messrs. Luxmoore and 
Crookes came in with a light. 

" The sovereigns, blotting paper, and wires were 



238 KATIE KING 

exactly as I had left them, viz., attached to her 
arms by pieces of elastic. 

" I was so much exhausted after this seance that 
I was obliged to discontinue the experiments. 
[I have lent my apparatus to Mr. Crookes, and 
have been to his house and tested the apparatus 
before Mr. Crookes, using his son (who is not a 
medium) in place of Miss Cook, who was not 
present.] 

" Mr. Crookes is unaffected by physical seances, but 
I always am very much exhausted by them. Not- 
withstanding so much vital power is taken from 
me, my presence very often weakens, or altogether 
stops the production of the phenomena. 

" The following table gives the readings and the 
phenomena as they were noted down : — 

Battery power two cells DanielPs ; resistance about four 
Ohms per cell. 
Resistance of Galvanometer . . 39,000 Ohms. 
„ Coils .... 10,000 „ 



Total resistance before the medium 

was put in circuit . . . 49,000 



MR. VARLEYS ACCOUNT 



239 



TABLE. 

Battery through 49,000 Ohms produced on the Galvanometer 
300 divisions on the scale ; when Miss Cook in circuit also, 220. 



Time. 


Deflection. 


Remarks. 


P.M. 

7.10 


220 


} Miss Cook in circuit, 23,000 Ohms 


| when wrists and fists moved. 




200 to 250 




7.12 


220 


Seance beginning. 


7.13 


220 




7.14 


210 


The medium has shifted her position. 


7.15 


220 




7.16 


200 
197 
197 
195 
196 
195 


Ditto Ditto. 


7.18 


194 
195 
194 
195 
193 




7.19 


196 
195 
193 




7.20 


191 
190 
189 




7.21 


191 
191 


C Katie whispered, her voice being re- 
1 cognised by Mr. and Mrs. Crookes, Mr. 


7.22 


192 


J Luxmoore, Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Harrison, 
land Mr. Tapp. 








192 






193 




7.23 


191 to 195 


( Fluctuating. Medium apparently 
\ uneasy, and moving about. 




193 

192 






7.24 


193 
189 





240 



KATIE KING 



Time. 


Deflection. 


Kemarks. 


P.M. 






7.25 


191 ) 
186 








176 


f A fall of 36 divisions in one minute. 






■ 


Miss Cook has evidently shifted her 




174 


-I position and has probably moved the 








sovereigns a little in so doing. No 




171 




^break of circuit, however. See note A. 


7.26 


155 








155 






151 




7.27 


148 


r "Katie" looked out from under the 
curtain on the side next to Mr. Lux- 




153 


moore, who was on her left ; this move- 




ment on her part required a motion of 






her hands. Galvanometer moved five 






^divisions. 




151 




7.28 


154 
157 


r Katie showed herself again as before 


7.29 


155 


J for a few seconds, lifting curtain as be- 


1 fore. Galvanometer did not move more 






Ithan three divisions. 




154 






156 




7.29J 


154 


Ditto Ditto. 




153 


Ditto Ditto. 


7.30 


157 


f Katie showed her hands ; I did not see 




154 


■I them ; all the others did : I was too far 
I away and watching Galvanometer. 


7.31 


155 


Showed herself again for a moment. 


7.32 


152 




7.33 


152 




7.34 


151 




7.35 


152 


f Katie showed her hand and arm, 


7.36 


135 


-J Galvanometer fell 17 divisions ! ! ! 
iNote B. 



MR. V ATI LEYS ACCOUNT 



241 



Time. 

P.M. 

7.36^ 

7.37 

7.37 

7.38 

7.39 

7.40 
7.41 



Deflection. 



7.42 



7.43 
7.44 
7.45 



150 

156 
156 
155 
157 

155 to 157 

157 

155 

156 
156 
155 



157 



156 
158 
146 



Remarks. 



(Katie showed both arms which she 
freely moved about. Galvanometer rose 
15, then 6, in all 21 divisions ! ! ! 



(Katie appeared on the other side 
of the curtain close to Mr. Crookes. 
Showed both of her arms. I saw this. 

f Katie put her hand on Mr. Crookes's 
J head, who said it felt cold. I saw this. 
J No movement of Galvanometer. Excel- 
Ylent test. Note C. 



/ Katie put her arm out full length, and 
I asked for pencil and paper. Katie now began 
I writing in sight of observers. I watched 
Galvanometer closely the whole timo she was 
writing, and it did not vary one division. 
Excellent Test. After the manifestation, 
Katie threw the paper at Mrs. Cook (the 
medium's mother). Katie then at my request 
moved her wrists, opened and closed her 
fingers, but the Galvanometer was steady the 
whole time. I was watching the Galvano- 
meter while asking the questions, and Crookes 
and Harrison, and others, told me that she 
moved her hands again and again in the 
manner requested by me. "While Katie was 
moving her wrists about and opening and 
closing her fingers, we all distinctly heard 
Miss Cools moaning like a person in a troubled 
dream. The opening :ind closing of her 
fingers did not cause any variation exceeding 
one division on the scale ; had it been Miss 
Cook's hand, the Galvanometer would have 
\ varied at least 10 divisions. 



242 



KATIE KING 



Time. 


Deflection. 


Remarks. 


P.M. 

7.46 

7.47 

7.48 


149 
150 
147 
150 

146 


r I here tested the sensitiveness of 
Galvanometer, and found that with 

J 49,000 Ohms resistance, the deflection 
was 297^ as against 300 degs. at the 

(^commencement of the experiment. 



"At 7.48 Katie let me grasp her hand, and asked 
me to wake up the medium. 

"Note A. — (7.25 to 7.26 p.m.) — Galvanometer 
rapidly fell from 191 to 155 ; in another minute 
Katie appeared; the galvanometer never rose higher 
than 157 or 158 after this sudden drop. (This is 
worthy of careful note.) 

" Note B. — (7.35 to 7.36J p.m.)— Galvanometer fell 
from 152 to 135, and rose again to 150; and at 
7.37 to 156. The medium seems to have moved 
much. Here Katie showed both her arms, and 
moved them freely about. This looked very 
suspicious ; but 

"Note G. — At 7.39 p.m. Katie moved her arms 
about freely, and touched Mr. Crookes on the head, 
the galvanometer being quite steady : it did not 
vary more than one division; this neutralises the 
doubt just expressed. 

"At 7.42 she was actively writing, but the galva- 



NOTES ON RESULTS 243 

nometer did not vary one division. This, I main- 
tain, clearly proves that Miss Cook was not only in 
the dark chamber while Katie was in sight, but also 
perfectly quiescent. 

"At 7.45 p.m. she repeated this experiment with 
the same result ; and while Katie was moving her 
fingers and wrists I watched her, Mr. Harrison 
watching the galvanometer. Mr. Crookes drew our 
attention to the fact that Miss Cook was moaning 
like ' a person suffering from an uneasy dream, and 
Katie was at the same time standing before us. and 

moving her hands as desired. 

"0. F. VARLEY." 

Some curious and interesting details were con- 
tributed to the Spiritualist of February 6, 1874, by 
Mr. G. R. Tapp, in the following letter : — 

"SPIRIT FORMS 

" Sir, — I was much pleased with the intelligent 
letter in your last number from ' M. R. S.,' on the 
subject of the late outrage at a spirit circle. 

" Having been privileged to attend more than 
thirty stances, at which Miss Cook has been the 
medium, and having made notes of many, if not 
nearly all of them, it may interest ' M. R. S.,' and 
those of your readers who have not witnessed these 
most remarkable manifestations, if I state the 
result of some of my own observations with re- 
gard to the much disputed question of the identity 



2 44 KATIE KING 

of the spirit ' Katie/ apart from that of the medium 
at these stances. 

" I have, in common with others, been struck 
with the occasional resemblance of the features of 
' Katie,' when materialised, to those of her medium, 
but the points of difference between the two, are to 
me — who have watched very closely at all times — 
still more remarkable, not only as regards features, 
but as regards height, bulk, &c. When the circle 
is small and harmonious, and the medium in 
good health and good humour, the resemblance is 
scarcely perceptible between ' Katie ' and Miss Cook. 

" I was the first visitor who saw ' Katie ' in the 
full form. There was scarcely any resemblance on 
that occasion. ' Katie,' with her naked feet flat on 
the floor, stood five feet six inches high. She was 
stout and broad across the waist and shoulders, 
quite a contrast to her medium, who is much 
shorter and petite in figure. For a detailed descrip- 
tion of this then extraordinary manifestation, I will 
refer your readers to my letter in the Spiritualist 
of 1st March last. 

" ' Katie ' has frequently stood by me, and leaned 
against me, at stances, for several minutes together, 
permitting me to thoroughly scan her face and 
figure in a good light. I have also been permitted 
often to touch (but never to grasp) her. At one 
sitting, she laid her right arm in my outstretched 
hands, and allowed me to closely examine it. It 



MR. TAPPS ACCOUNT 245 

was plump and shapely, longer than that of the 
medium. The hands, too, were much larger, with 
beautifully shaped nails. I may here state that 
Miss Cook, ever since I have known her, has had a 
bad habit of biting her nails almost to the roots. 
I then held the arm lightly in one hand, and 
passed my other hand along it from the shoulder. 
The skin was beautifully — I might say, unnaturally 
— smooth, like wax or marble ; yet the temperature 
was that of the healthy human body. There was, 
however, no bone in the wrist. I lightly felt round 
the wrist again, to make sure of this beyond doubt, 
and then told ' Katie ' that the bone was wanting. 
She laughed, and said, ' wait a bit,' and after going 
about to the other sitters, came round and placed 
her arm in my hand, as before. Sure enough, the 
bone ivas then there ! I joked her on this point, and 
also said what fine finger-nails she had got. She 
took hold of my hand, and turned it quickly round, 
and gave a vigorous scratch on the back of it that 
raised the skin and drew blood. This excellent 
test has also been given to other sitters. I have 
had it on two occasions. 

" In two instances I have seen Katie with long 
ringlets reaching to her waist, the hair being of a 
light brown colour. The medium's hah is cut 
short, it is not curled, 1 and its colour is very dark 
brown, almost black. 

1 This must be au error. — E. E. F. 



246 KATIE KING 

" Katie's eyes are sometimes a light blue colour, 
sometimes dark brown. This difference has been 
noticed very frequently. 

" On one occasion Katie, on coming out of her 
cabinet, held up her right arm, which was of a dusky 
black colour. Letting it fall by her side, and raising 
it again almost instantaneously, it was the usual 
flesh colour like the other arm. 

" One evening, recently, I made some jesting 
remark to Katie, who stood near me, when she 
suddenly struck me heavily on the chest with her 
clenched fist. I was startled and, indeed, hurt by 
the unexpected blow ; so much so, that I inad- 
vertently caught hold of her right arm by the wrist. 
Her wrist crumpled in my grasp like a piece of 
paper or thin cardboard, my fingers meeting to- 
gether through it. I let go at once, and expressed 
my regret that I had forgotten the conditions, fear- 
ing that harm to the medium might ensue, but 
Katie reassured me, saying, that as my act was not 
intentional, she could avert any untoward result. 

" I could give many other curious instances, but 
will not further occupy your space, except to state, 
that when these manifestations first commenced, I 
seriously questioned Katie as to what the result 
would be if the conditions were broken. She 
affirmed that her medium would probably be killed 
or much hurt. Not quite satisfied, I put a similar 
question to a well-known trance medium (who had 



HER LAST APPEARANCE 247 

never sat with Miss Cook), and got a like reply. 
At the close of one of the Wednesday discourses at 
Gower Street, I asked the spirit controlling Mrs. 
Tappan, ' What would be the result to the medium 
and the sitters, if the materialised form were grasped 
at or detained ? ' The answer was, ' Death or serious 
injury to the medium, possibly harm to yourselves' 

" In conclusion, I cheerfully take this opportunity 
of testifying my firm belief, based upon close and 
repeated observation at these seances, in the good 
faith and integrity of Miss Cook and her family, 
and I heartily thank them and their friends for 
permitting me, without fee or reward, to enjoy the 
privilege of constant attendance at their circle, 
whereby I have been greatly aided in my study 
and investigation of that most extraordinary pheno- 
menon of this our day, modern Spiritualism. 

"GEORGE ROBERT TAPP. 

"Dalston Association of Enquikeks 
into Spiritualism, 
74 Navakino Road, Dalston, E." 

The last appearances of " Katie King " took place 
on May 9, 13, 16, and 21, 1874. The following 
accounts were contributed to the Spiritualist by Mr. 
Benjamin Coleman (May 15), Mr. W. H. Harrison, 
and Mrs. Ross-Church (" Florence Marryat "). 1 

1 Sir William Crookes also contributed accounts of the pheno- 
mena to the same journal, but as these are to be reproduced in a 
separate work, they are not included here. 



248 KATIE KING 

"A FAREWELL VISIT TO KATIE KING, 
THE SPIRIT. 

"By Benjamin Coleman. 

" I cheerfully accepted an invitation to attend 
on Saturday, May 9, one of Miss Cook's seances, 
at which the well-known materialised spirit of 
Katie King was expected to appear, and, having 
been requested to give my account of what tran- 
spired on this eventful evening, I now do so, merely 
premising that the readers of this journal are no 
doubt aware that this spirit, who calls herself Katie 
King, first made her presence known to the family 
of Mr. Cook, of Hackney, just three years ago, by 
controlling their eldest daughter, Florence, promis- 
ing that, if surrounded by suitable influences, she 
would prove one of the greatest mediums known. 
Happily for the cause of science, Mr. Charles 
Blackburn, of Manchester, became interested in 
this young lady's career, and at once made such 
arrangements as should render it unnecessary for 
her to become a professional medium. Those who 
have been readers of the Sjoiriticalist newspaper 
have been from time to time informed of the grow- 
ing interest which has attended this young girl's 
progress ; and how for more than two years the 
materialised form of the spirit has appeared pal- 
pably to some hundreds of invited guests who have 
attended Miss Cook's seances. And now that the 



MR. COLEMAN S ACCOUNT 249 

spirit has accomplished her mission, as she avers, 
she is about to leave the scenes of earth punctually 
on the day she originally announced, viz., the 21st 
of May 1874, three years from the date she first 
controlled Florence Cook. All those who have 
closely followed up these meetings, and heard from 
the lips of the spirit what she would accomplish at 
various times, if suitable conditions could be secured, 
and who all say she has never failed to realise a 
promise once made by her, feel sure that she means 
to take her departure on the day she has fixed, but 
only to make way for other manifestations of a still 
higher form — that of recognisable faces of the 
spirits, and probably the persons of our departed 
friends. 

" The seance I am about to describe was con- 
ducted, as all the later ones have been, by Mr. 
William Crookes, F.R.S., and there were present a 
party of eight or ten ladies and gentlemen known 
to Miss Cook and her family, who formed a con- 
genial and harmonious circle, best calculated to 
secure the most perfect results, and we were not 
disappointed. 

" Miss Cook's bedroom, which is of small size, 
was made to answer the purpose of a cabinet, and 
the audience sat in a parlour adjoining the bed- 
room, which was screened by a heavy dark curtain 
to obscure the light. The parlour was lighted by 
gas which was not put out, but partially raised and 



2 SO KATIE KING 

lowered at intervals by Mr. Crookes. My chair and 
those who sat on each side of me were placed 
opposite to the curtain, so that when it was with- 
drawn I could see directly into the entire length 
of the cabinet. Mr. Crookes invited me in the first 
instance to inspect the arrangements, which were 
very simple. They had become afraid to put the 
medium to sleep upon the bed as they had been 
accustomed to do, for fear she should roll off during 
the uneasy state in which she sometimes gets 
during a long trance, and now there were but two 
pillows placed on the floor for Miss Cook to lie 
upon, and in this position I saw her with nothing 
but her ordinary clothing and a red worsted shawl 
thrown over her head. 

" She is of small figure, handsome countenance, 
brunette complexion, with dark eyes and very dark 
brown hair. 

" Her dress was of light blue merino, trimmed 
with black velvet, fitting high up in the neck, with 
just space enough to show a glittering necklet 
suspended round her throat by a band of black 
velvet. Her ears arc pierced, and she wore earrings. 
On her feet were ordinary spring boots. 

" This is the result of my observations of her 
appearance and dress, the moment before she laid 
her head on the pillows and entered the trance 
state. 

" Mr. Crookes stood by the entrance and listened 




Miss Florence Cook in 1874 

(Photo by B. J. Edwards, Hackney) 



an 



MR. COLEMAN S ACCOUNT 25 I 

for any sound from within. In about ten or fifteen 
minutes we heard Katie's voice, and then saw her 
draw aside a small portion of the curtain timidly 
and show her head. Encouraged by Mr. Crookes, 
she stepped out into the room, and at once saluted 
the ladies and gentlemen present, and in turn I 
came in for recognition with an arch, ' How do you 
do, Mr. Ben ? ' In contrast to the dress of the 
medium, the entire appearance of Katie was sin- 
gularly striking. I have given up, as I explained 
in my last letter on this subject, my former hypo- 
thesis of the ' double ' in this particular case, in 
deference to the proofs given by Mr. Crookes and 
Mr. Varley, which establish in the most satisfactory 
and conclusive manner that this figure and the 
medium, though doubtless connected in some 
mysterious way, and much alike in features, are 
two distinct individualities, and I am now about to 
add my testimony in support of the opinion of 
those distinguished members of the Royal Society. 

" The dress of Katie was, as I had seen before, 
of pure white, differing only from my former de- 
scription of it by having in this instance short 
sleeves ; it was as nearly as possible like that pre- 
sented in the photograph, with Dr. Gully holding 
her hand. Her feet were naked, and I am told 
they always are so presented. How is this ? Can 
they not materialise leather ? Her movements were 
extremely agile, and singularly graceful. By the 



25 2 KATIE KING 

way in which she took the arm of Mr. Crookes and 
stooped to pick up a fan she had dropped, which 
she had been using in the most natural manner, 
and the way in which she stepped across the room 
(not gliding, as I had seen before), and at one time 
resting her head on her hand with her elbow lean- 
ing against the door ; then seating herself on the 
floor, resting her elbow on the chair, all gave one 
the idea of a supple, flexible-limbed young woman 
of graceful and child-like habits. When she in- 
quired whether any of us wished to ask her 
questions, I took out of my pocket an envelope 
containing a cabinet-sized photograph, and holding 
it for her to take, she stepped across the room and 
took it from me and exclaimed, ' This is Dr. Gully 1 
and my likeness ! What do you want me to do 
with it ? ' ' Write,' I said, ' your name, and any 
message you have to give me on the back of it 
that I may keep it in remembrance of this even- 
ing.' Borrowing my pencil she wrote : ' Annie 
Morgan, usually known as Katie King. To her 
dear friend, Mr. Ben., May 9th, 1874.' When it 
was read aloud some one said that was too familiar, 
and she was reminded that there were others of 
the same name known to her, upon which she 
asked for the card to be returned, and wrote : ' Mr. 
Ben is B. Coleman, Esq.' 

" During the evening she frequently went behind 
1 Father of Mr. Speaker Gully. See photo, facing p. 232.— E. E. F. 




A later Portrait of Miss Florence Cook 
(Mrs. Elgie Corner) 

(Photo by H. Dunning, Usk, Mon.) 



SEPARATE IDENTITY 253 

the curtain, near which Mr. Crookes was seated, 
and he and I and four others who sat by me saw 
at one and the same time the figure of Katie, clad 
in her white dress, bending over the sleeping form of 
the medium, whose dress was Hue, with a red shawl 
over her head. This incident was repeated with 
an increased amount of gas-light, which went 
streaming into the inner room, and thus the fact 
is at length established that both the living form 
of Miss Cook and the spirit form of the materialised 
Katie were seen by Mr. Crookes, myself, and others, 
twice on the evening of 9th day of May last. 1 

" I believe, too, that Mr. Crookes will yet get a 
photograph on one plate of both the medium and 
Katie, and thus all objectors outside these circles 
will be answered. 

" But whether this additional evidence occurs or 
not we had in this particular evening the most 
satisfactory proof of the distinct individuality of 
Katie, who is taller than the medium, is a Monde 
with olue eyes, ears that are not pierced, well-formed 
finger-nails, which Miss Cook has not, and hair of a 
golden hue. 

" As her hair during the first part of the evening 
was banded and showed too little for those sitting 
at a distance, I asked Mr. Crookes to decide upon 

"As the face of the medium was not visible on this occasion, 
we do not see that this was a test manifestation, although it seems 
s4at.ee after stance to be developing into one. — Ed. 



2 54 KATIE KING 

its colour ; he said ' Her hair is light.' Katie 
interrupting, said, ' Oh, I will show you my hair,' 
and in a few moments she presented her head with 
the most luxuriant golden curls hanging over her 
shoulders ; and turning her head, we saw that the 
ringlets were equally long and beautiful at her 
back ; and to give Mr. Crookes proof of its reality, 
Katie asked him to take hold of it at the back and 
pull it, which he did, and pronounced that it was 
apparently human hair growing on her head. 

" Indeed, the natural life-like character of the 
surroundings of this living form puzzles all who 
witness it. 

" It would be much better for all who oppose 
and have pinned their faith to the cry of imposture, 
' delusion,' or ( psychic force,' to stick to their guns 
rather than admit the facts which I assert are 
true. For if they surrender, the slanderous tongue 
of some and the sceptical thoughts of many would 
be hushed at once. 

" But happily Mr. Crookes, whose boldness in the 
cause of truth all men must approve, has cut the 
ground from under his own pet theory of ' psychic 
force,' unless, indeed, he has some yet unrevealed 
metaphysical hypothesis to make the discoveries he 
has recently promulgated fit in with that force to 
the exclusion of Spiritualism. And from what I 
think I know of his feelings I recommend the 
Tyndalls, Huxleys, and Carpenters, his associates 



SOUVENIRS 255 

in the Royal Society, not to be alarmed for the 
present. He has not run away from science to 
adopt what they believe to be a delusion. He has 
not got so far as that yet, they may be assured. 
He has only given a staggering blow to the gross 
calumny which some Spiritualists have ventured to 
promulgate against the character of a young girl, 
carefully nurtured and well educated, whose only 
crime in their eyes is that she proved to be, in the 
naturally progressive character of the Spiritual un- 
folding, a greater medium than any who have gone 
before her. 

" Two other incidents followed, which closed the 
seance, after more than two hours' duration. 

" Katie likes admiration, and as all present could 
say without flattery that her flowing curls were 
beautiful, several asked her for a portion of them 
as a souvenir. She took her hair playfully in her 
fingers, as if disposed to grant the request, but did 
not do it. She ultimately, however, did what was 
quite as strange ; she consented to part with por- 
tions of her dress, and, taking up her skirt in a 
double fold, Mr. Crookes having lent her his 
scissors, she cut two pieces out of the front part, 
leaving the holes, one about an inch, and the other 
two or three inches in circumference, visible to our 
eyes, and then, as if by magic, but without the 
conjuror's double boxes or any attempt at conceal- 
ment, she held that portion of the dress in her 



256 KATIE KING 

closed hand for a minute or two, and showed that 
the holes had disappeared, and that the dress was 
again entire. 

" The pieces, a portion of which I have, are 
apparently strong ordinary white calico. Finally, 
I asked Katie if she would allow rne to kiss her, 
and I walked across the room with her consent, 
and gave her a kiss, on a cheek that was warm, 
smooth, and yielding to the pressure." 



"THE FAREWELL SEANCE OF KATIE KING, 
THE SPIRIT. 

By W. H. Harrison. 

" From the beginning of Miss Cook's medium- 
ship, the spirit Katie King, or Annie Morgan, who 
produced most of the physical manifestations, an- 
nounced that she had power only to stay with her 
medium for three years, when she would take her 
final departure. Her time was up on Thursday last 
week, and before leaving she gave three farewell 
stances to her friends. At the first of these, held on 
Wednesday, May 13, the visitors present were Mr, 
William Crookes, F.R.S. ; Mrs. Makdougall-Gregory, 
Miss Douglas, Mr. Henry M. Dunphy, Barrister- 
at-Law ; Mrs. Ross-Church, Mr. and Mrs. James 
Mankiewicz, Miss Katherine Poyntz, Mr. and Mrs. 
Walter Crookes, Mr. S. C. Hall, F.S.A. ; Mrs. A. 



MR. HARRISONS ACCOUNT 257 

Corner, Mr. G. R. Tapp, and Mr. W. H. Harrison. 
At the second stance, held on Saturday evening, 
May 10, the observers were Mr. William Crookes, 
Miss Alice Crookes, M. Gustave de Veh (a friend 
of Prince Wittgenstein, and one of the leading 
Spiritualists in Paris), M. E. Boulland, LL.D. ; Mr. 
Henry Bielfield, Mr. Enmore Jones, his sons Rupert 
and Arthur, his daughters Alice and Emily, and his 
mother, Mrs. Jane Jones ; Mr. and Mrs. Thomas 
Blyton and Miss Florence M. Blyton, Mr. G. R. Tapp, 
Mrs. A. Corner, Mr. H. M. Dunphy, and Mr. W. H. 
Harrison. Mr. and Mrs. Cook and family were also 
present at both the stances. 

" The farewell stance was held on Thursday last 
week, and Katie had emphatically stated that she 
intended to give it only to the few tried friends 
now in London, who for a lon^ time had been 
fighting her medium's battles with the public ; and, 
notwithstanding many solicitations, she made but 
one exception, by inviting Mrs. Florence Marryat 
Ross-Church. The other spectators were Mr. 
William Crookes, Mrs. Corner, Mr. W. H. Harrison, 
Mr. G. R. Tapp, Mr. and Mrs. Cook and family, and 
the servant Mary. 

"Mr. Crookes, at 7.25, conducted Miss Cook into 
the dark room used as a cabinet, where she laid 
herself clown upon the floor, with her head resting 
on a pillow; at 7.28 p.m. Katie first spoke, and 
at 7.3 p.m came outside the curtain in full form. 

R 



258 KATIE KING 

She was dressed in pure white, with low neck and 
short sleeves. She had long hair of a light auburn 
or golden colour, which hung in ringlets down her 
back and each side of her head, reaching nearly to 
her waist. She wore a long white veil, but this was 
only drawn over her face once or twice during the 
stance. 

" The medium was dressed in a high gown of light 
blue merino. During nearly the whole of the stance 
while Katie was before us, the curtain was drawn 
back and all could clearly see the sleeping medium, 
who did not stir from her original position, but lay 
quite still, her face being covered with a red shawl 
to keep light from it. There was a good light 
during the entire stance. 

" Katie talked about her approaching departure, 
and accepted a bouquet which Mr. Tapp brought 
her, also some bunches of lilies from Mr. Crookes. 

" All the sitters in the circle clustered closely 
round her. Katie asked Mr. Tapp to take the 
bouquet to pieces, and lay the flowers out before 
her on the floor ; she then sat down, Eastern 
fashion, and asked all to draw round her, which 
was done, most of those present sitting on the floor 
at her feet. She then divided the flowers into 
bunches for each, tying them up with blue ribbon. 
She also wrote parting notes to some of her friends, 
signed, ' Annie Owen Morgan,' which she stated was 
her real name when in earth life. She wrote a note 



PARTING WORDS 259 

for her medium, and selected a fine rosebud for her 
as a parting gift. 

" Katie then took a pair of scissors and cut off 
a quantity of her hair, giving everbody present a 
liberal portion. She then took the arm of Mr. 
Crookes and walked all round the room, shaking 
hands with each. She again sat down, and distri- 
buted some of her hair ; and also cut off and pre- 
sented several pieces of her robe and veil. After 
she had thus cut several great holes in her dress as 
she sat between Mr. Crookes and Mr. Tapp, she was 
asked if she could mend it as she had done on 
other occasions ; she then held up the dilapidated 
portion -in a good light, gave it one flap and it was 
instantly as perfect as at first. Those near the 
door of the cabinet examined it and handled it im- 
mediately, with her permission, and testified there 
was no hole, seam, or joint of any kind, where a 
moment before had been large holes several inches 
in diameter. 

" Then she gave parting instructions to Mr. Crookes 
and other friends, as to the course which was to be 
taken in the future for the further developments 
that are promised to be given through her medium- 
ship. These instructions were very carefully re- 
corded and given to Mr. Crookes. 

" She then appeared tired and said reluctantly that 
she must go, as the power was failing, and bade 
farewell in the most affectionate way ; the sitters all 



2 Go KATIE KING 

Avisbed her God speed, and thanked her for the 
wonderful manifestations she had given. Looking 
once more earnestly at her friends she let the curtain 
fall and she was seen no more. She was heard to 
wake up the medium, who tearfully entreated her 
to stay a little longer, but Katie said, ' My dear, 
I can't. My work is done ; God bless 3 r ou,' and we 
heard the sound of her parting kiss. The medium 
then came out among us, looking much exhausted 
and deeply troubled. 

" Katie said that she should never be able to speak 
or show her face again ; that she had had a weary 
and sad three years' life ' working off her sins ' in 
producing these physical manifestations, and that 
she was about to rise higher in spirit life. At long- 
intervals she might be able to communicate with 
her medium by writing, but at any time her medium 
might be enabled to see her clairvoyantly by being- 
mesmerised. 

" We have received the following letter on the 
subject from Mrs. Ross-Church : — 

" To the Editor of the ' Spiritualist.' 

" Sir, — As the genuineness of Miss Cook's medium- 
ship has been so publicly called in question lately, 
I think it but a just return for the kindness which 
enabled me to be present at three of her last stkmccs 
to bear witness to what I experienced there. These 



FLORENCE MARRY AT's ACCOUNT 26 I 

stances took place on the 9 th, 13 th, and 21st of the 
present month. 

" I will not recapitulate what so many have told 
of the appearance of the spirit ' Katie King,' nor of 
the means taken to prevent any imposition on the 
part of her medium. This has all been repeated 
again and asrain, and as often disbelieved. But I 
find Serjeant Cox, in his late letter on the subject 
of Miss Showers' mediumship, saying that could 
such an end be attained as a simultaneous sight of 
the apparition outside the curtain and the medium 
within, ' the most wonderful fact the world has ever 
witnessed would be established beyond controversy.' 
Perhaps Serjeant Cox would consider a sight of both 
medium and spirit in the same room and at the 
same time as convincing a proof of stern truth. I 
have seen that sight. 

" On the evening of the 9th of May, Katie King 
led me, at my own request, into the room with her 
beyond the curtain, which was not so dark but that 
I could distinguish surrounding objects, and then 
made me kneel down by Miss Cook's prostrate form, 
and feel her hands and face and head of curls, 
whilst she (the spirit) held my other hand in hers, 
and leaned against my shoulder, with one arm 
round my neck. I have not the slightest doubt 
that upon that occasion there were present with me 
two living, breathing intelligences, perfectly distinct 
from each other, so far at least as their bodies were 



262 KATIE KING 

concerned. If my senses deceived me ; if I was misled 
by imagination or mesmeric influence into believing 
that I touched and felt two bodies, instead of one ; 
if ' Katie King,' who grasped, and embraced, and 
spoke to me, is a projection of thought only — a 
will-power — an instance of unknown force — then it 
will be no longer possible to know ' Who's who in 
1874,' and we shall hesitate to turn up the gas 
incautiously lest half our friends should be but pro- 
jections of thought, and melt away beneath its 
glare. 

" Whatever Katie King was on the evening of 
the 9 th of May, she was not Miss Cook. To that 
fact I am ready to take my most solemn oath. 
She repeated the same experiment with me on the 
13th, and on that occasion we had the benefit of 
mutual sight also, as the whole company were in- 
vited to crowd round the door whilst the curtain 
was withdrawn and the gas turned up to the full, 
in order that we might see the medium, in her 
blue dress and scarlet shawl, lying in a trance on 
the floor, whilst the white-robed spirit stood beside 
her. 

" On the 21st, however, the occasion of Katie's 
last appearance amongst us, she was good enough 
to give me what I consider a still more infallible 
proof (if one could be needed) of the distinction of 
her ideality from that of her medium. When she 
summoned me in my turn to say a few words to 



PSYCHIC FORCE 263 

her behind the curtain I again saw and touched 
the warm breathing body of Florence Cook lying 
on the floor, and then stood upright by the side of 
Katie, who desired me to place my hands inside 
the loose single garment which she wore and feel 
her nude body. I did so thoroughly. I felt her 
heart beating rapidly beneath my hand ; and passed 
my fingers through her long hair to satisfy myself 
that it grew from her head, and can testify that if 
she be ' of psychic force,' psychic force is very like 
a woman. 

" Katie was very busy that evening. To each of 
her friends assembled to say good-bye she gave a 
bouquet of flowers tied up with ribbon, a piece of 
her dress and veil, and a lock of her hair, and a 
note which she wrote with her pencil before us. 
Mine was as follows : ' From Annie Owen de 
Morgan (alias Katie King) to her friend Florence 
Marryat Ross-Church, with love. Pcnscz a moi. 
May 21st, 1874.' I must not forget to relate what 
appeared to me one of the most convincing proofs 
of Katie's more than natural power, namely, that 
when she had cut, before our eyes, twelve or fifteen 
different pieces of cloth from the front of her white 
tunic as souvenirs for her friends, there was not a 
hole to be seen in it, examine it which way you 
would. It was the same with her veil, and I have 
seen her do the same thing several times. 

" I think if in the face of all this testimony that 



264 KATIE KING 

has been brought before them, the faithless and 
unbelieving still credit Miss Cook with the super- 
human agility required to leap from the spirit's 
dress into her own like a flash of lightning, they 
will hardly suppose her capable of re-weaving the 
material of her clothing in the same space of time. 
If they can believe that, they will not find the 
spiritualistic doctrine so hard a nut to crack after- 
wards. But I did not take up my pen to argue 
this point, but simply to relate what has occurred 
to myself. I could fill pages with an account of 
these three sdanccs, but doubtless you will receive 
several letters on the subject, and I shall not tres- 
pass longer on your space, particularly as I have 
only written this as a testimony to my complete 
faith in Miss Cook's mediumship, and my pleasure 
at having been permitted to judge of it myself. — I 
am, dear sir, yours faithfully, 

" FLORENCE MARRYAT ROSS-CHURCH." 

Thus departed Annie Owen Morgan, alias Katie 
King, and since that time she has not revisited this 
terrene world. Upon those with whom she was 
brought into contact she shed a light which illu- 
mined the rest of their lives. If Katie King was a 
" devil " in the garb of an angel, or rather in that 
of a merry and tender-hearted and beautiful young 
woman, it must be acknowledged that either devils 
have been greatly maligned, or that they must be 



PRESS OPINIONS 265 

sought in a large portion of humanity at its best 
and brightest. And if the angels (if such there 
be) are the antithesis of all that, if they are gloomy 
and severe and ugly, where is the advantage in en- 
deavouring to qualify for their company ? 

Speaking seriously, an occurrence like this was 
surely sufficient to fire the imagination of a whole 
generation, and to inspire thousands with the wish 
to explore such new possibilities to their utmost ! 

The publication of the records did attract some 
attention, but not so much as one would expect. 
The papers treated the matter lightly. Thus the 
Evening Standard of April 7, 1874 : — 

" Mr. William Crookes, F.R.S., whose belief in 
Spiritualism is the result of what he calls scientific 
examination, announces to the world that with the 
aid of a six-ounce bottle of phosphorised oil he can 
see spirits, when, as usual, the gas is turned off. 
Of course his first ambition was to see Katie ; for 
Katie is the best known, and, if we may use the 
word, the most sprightly of all the spirits who 
consent to attend seances. It is only when Bishop 
Colenso and such-like dignitaries have to be con- 
vinced that one can ensure the presence of Moses 
and Aaron to ask conundrums, but for ' general 
utility ' purposes Katie is the handiest spirit we 
have. She has not revealed her surname ; perhaps 
whatever it is, she is open to change it, and such is 



266 KATIE KING 

her amiability of disposition that she would make 
any ghost happy, Avho could gain her hand and 
heart ; for that she has a hand and probably a 
heart, is what Mr. Crookes has just proved, having 
seen her in bodily shape, and, as we may reason- 
ably suppose, suitably attired in ghosts of clothes. 
But there is this peculiarity about Katie — she 
varies in length. On one occasion Mr. Crookes 
saw her six inches taller than her medium, and on 
another occasion not much more than four inches, 
though always above the medium height. Mr. 
Crookes need not distress himself about this. It 
is in strict accordance with all that we know of 
Spiritualism, and is certainly not more difficult to 
explain than the preternatural elongations of Mr. 
Home. The lines from Sir Walter Scott's ' Glen- 
finlas ' will occur to the reader — 

" ' Tall waxed the spirit's altering form, 
Till to the roof her stature grew, 
Then mingling with the rising storm, 
With one wild yell, away she flew.' '' 

Other papers contented themselves with pointing 
out the obvious desirability of phenomena of such 
stupendous import being fully investigated. But 
London is a busy place, and soon forgets occurrences 
which produce no perceptible effect upon the money 
market. And so this remarkable event gradually 
faded into oblivion, and the present generation is 



LOMBROSO AND RICHET 267 

ignorant of the fact that Katie King ever breathed 
the air of London. 

Note. — In the current number of the Annals of Psychical Science 
(Aug.-Sept. 1908, p. 376), Professor Lombroso expresses himself 
in favour of the view that "Katie King" had actually lived on 
earth under the name of Annie Owen Morgan. 

In R. J. Thompson's " Proofs of Life after Death " (Laurie, 
London, 1906), Charles Richet, Professor of Physiology at 
Paris University, and editor of the Revue Scientifique, makes 
the following confession : " After reading the astounding 
statements which Mr. Crookes had published, I allowed my- 
self — and here do I publicly beg his pardon for it ! — to laugh 
at them as heartily as almost every one else was doing. But 
now I say just what my friend Ochorowicz says in the same 
matter — I beat my breast and I cry, Pater, peccavi ! How could 
I suppose that the savant who has discovered thallium and 
the radiometer, and foreshadowed the Roentgen rays, could 
commit gross and inexplicable blunders, and allow himself to 
be duped for years by tricks which a child could have exposed ? 
. . . The real world which surrounds us, with its prejudices, 
well or ill-founded, its scheme of habitual opinions, holds us 
in so strong a grasp that we can scarcely free ourselves com- 
pletely. Certainty does not follow on demonstration; it follows 
on habit." 



CHAPTER III 

INTERPRETATION OF THE PHENOMENA 

In the last chapter we have about as good and 
trustworthy a record as we can hope to get of the 
unusual phenomena described. The methods of 
examination, the various tests and safeguards de- 
vised, appear to be amply sufficient. The witnesses 
are unimpeachable, their skill and veracity are un- 
assailable. Why then, it might be asked, were not 
these extraordinary occurrences investigated very 
much more closely since ? Why should possibilities 
of such enormous importance have been left prac- 
tically unexplored ? How is it that the whole 
civilised world was not convulsed by such as- 
tounding occurrences, and why were they not the 
starting-point of a revolution in all our philosophies? 
The answer is not so very difficult to furnish. In 
the first place, the world is not interested in isolated 
facts. A fact only becomes of importance when it 
in some way affects a number of people personally. 
Now a phenomenon which can only be reproduced 
under very exceptional conditions, if at all, is not 
likely to arouse much personal interest. When the 

world hears of an extraordinary or apparently mira- 

268 



INTERPRETATION 269 

culous occurrence, it either smiles in a superior way 
or politely awaits further confirmation. The amount 
of such further confirmation required to convince 
public opinion is in direct proportion to the interests 
threatened by a general recognition of the occur- 
rences and the conclusions deducible therefrom. 
The world whose opinion counts in such matters as 
these is divisible into two camps, those of science 
and of orthodoxy. Science in 1874 was over- 
whelmingly materialistic. Anything which threat- 
ened the mechanical theory of mind and the 
supremacy of matter was sure to encounter a violent 
opposition. According to all scientific theories then 
in power, the occurrences described in the last 
chapter were clearly " impossible." True, other 
things had previously been denounced in that term, 
but when they could be demonstrated before a 
Royal Institution audience to any one who chose 
to attend, they had to be accepted in the end. And 
this is just what could not be done in the case of 
" Katie King." It therefore remained a matter of 
individual conviction for Sir William Crookes and 
his friends. Less favoured men of science did not 
see why they should recognise either his superior 
skill or his better fortune by accepting his facts. 
These less favoured men were necessarily in an 
overwhelming majority. They are so even to-day, 
and thus it has come about that the world of science 
has not been converted to a recognition of such 



27 O INTERPRETATION 

phenomena. In reality, Sir William Crookes owed 
his extraordinary success to a number of auxiliary 
circumstances. He had an exceptionally gifted 
medium, a thorough experimental training, a cool 
judgment, and an infinite tact and patience. This 
is perceived in all his experiments, and notably in 
the following, which is quoted from the Spiritualist 
of April 3, 1874:— 

" I pass on to a seance held last night at Hackney. 
Katie never appeared to greater perfection, and for 
nearly two hours she walked about the room con- 
versing familiarly with those present. On several 
occasions she took my arm when walking, and the 
impression conveyed to my mind that it was a living 
woman by my side, instead of a visitor from the 
other world, was so strong, that the temptation to 
repeat a recent celebrated experiment became almost 
irresistible. 

" Feeling, however, that if I had not a spirit, I 
had at all events a lady close to me, I asked her 
permission to clasp her in my arms, so as to be able 
to verify the interesting observations which a bold 
experimentalist has recently somewhat verbosely 
recorded. Permission was graciously given, and I 
accordingly did — well, as an}'- gentleman would do 
under the circumstances. Mr. Volckman will be 
pleased to know that I can corroborate his state- 
ment that the ' ghost ' (not ' struggling,' however) 
was as material a being as Miss Cook herself. But 



A SUBSTANTIAL PHANTOM 27 I 

the sequel shows how wrong it is for an experi- 
mentalist, however accurate his observations may 
be, to venture to draw an important conclusion from 
an insufficient amount of evidence. 

" Katie now said she thought she should be able 
this time to show herself and Miss Cook together. 
I was to turn the gas out, and then come with my 
phosphorus lamp into the room now used as a 
cabinet. This I did, having previously asked a 
friend, who was skilful at shorthand, to take down 
any statement I might make when in the cabinet, 
knowing the importance attaching to first impres- 
sions, and not wishing to leave more to memory 
than necessary. His notes are now before me. 

'■ I went cautiously into the room, it being dark, 
and felt about for Miss Cook. I found her crouch- 
ing on the floor. Kneeling down, I let air enter 
the lamp, and by its light I saw the young lady, 
dressed in black velvet, as she had been in the early 
part of the evening, and to all appearance perfectry 
senseless. She did not move when I took her hand 
and held the light close to her face, but continued 
quietly breathing. 

" Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw 
Katie standing close behind Miss Cook. She was 
robed in flowing white drapery, as we had seen her 
previously during the stance. Holding one of Miss 
Cook's hands in mine, and still kneeling, I passed 
the lamp up and down, so as to illuminate Katie's 



272 INTERPRETATION 

whole figure, and satisfy myself thoroughly that I 
was really looking at the veritable Katie whom I 
had clasped in my arms a few minutes before, and 
not at the phantasm of a disordered brain. She 
did not speak, but moved her head and smiled in 
recognition. Three separate times did I carefully 
examine Miss Cook crouching before me, to be sure 
that the hand I held was that of a living woman, 
and three separate times did I turn the lamp to 
Katie and examine her with steadfast scrutiny, until 
I had no doubt whatever of her objective reality. 
At last Miss Cook moved slightly, and Katie 
instantly motioned me to go away. I went to 
another part of the cabinet, and then ceased to 
see Katie, but did not leave the room till Miss 
Cook woke up, and two of the visitors came in 
with a light." 

The ordinary scientific investigator is not at all 
prepared to treat his " subjects " with anything 
approaching such chivalrous consideration. He is 
much more inclined to hrusquer les choses, and visit 
all objections with threats of denunciation. It is 
another instance of the tyranny of the crowd. 

On the side of orthodoxy the phenomena were 
equally unfortunate. Orthodoxy had at that time 
had so much rough handling from science with its 
vast array of " facts " that it was very chary of re- 
cognising new facts which might conceivably intrude 
upon its domain. This feeling was enhanced by 



SPIRITUALISM 273 

the somewhat hasty generalisations of ill-advised 
spiritualists, who proceeded straightway to found a 
new religion upon the few supernormal phenomena 
they had stumbled across. That such phenomena 
should give rise to a new sect was not surprising, 
since sects had been established before on a much 
more doubtful foundation. But this denomination 
was specially dangerous on account of its semi- 
scientific character. The phenomena were open to 
all to investigate, and were extensively investigated. 
In America, especially, the spread of spiritualism 
was very rapid, and its present organisation is cal- 
culated to number several million adherents. On 
account of the questionable character of many of 
its exponents, it has become the fashion for people 
to preface a declaration of their belief in the pheno- 
mena by saying, " I am not a spiritualist." This 
somewhat pusillanimous attitude is pardonable in 
people whose public position depends upon the 
ignorant and prejudiced, but in others it is simply 
cowardice. Whatever may be said of American 
spiritualism, in Europe the movement is on the 
whole clean and wholesome, and associated with an 
open and wide outlook and a lofty morality. The 
average spiritualist is not a vulgar spook-hunter, 
but a man somewhat dazed, perhaps, with the vision 
of ineffable glories, dimly seen through the veil 
which hides the Beyond, a man whose faults, if any, 
arise from the concentration of his attention on the 

s 



2 74 INTERPRETATION 

next world rather than on the cold realities and 
trickeries and pitfalls of this. 

No doubt there are fraudulent pseudo-mediums 
who carry on an unholy trade, but these are usually 
exposed by spiritualists themselves. And are we 
not a little ungrateful to those delicate " instru- 
ments of research," those high-strung men and timid 
women and young girls who have braved the 
dangers and terrors of the Unknown to extend the 
bounds of human knowledge ? Their reward, in- 
stead of being great, has been scanty. Usually it 
has brought them nothing but suspicion and denun- 
ciation. Material rewards are looked upon as direct 
evidence of fraud, and the poor notoriety is as often 
a burden as a help. Is it to be wondered at that 
mediums are rare, or rather, that they decline to 
come out into the open, to have the innermost 
secrets of their being exposed to the vulgar curiosity 
of the public, or the inconsiderate and supercilious 
scrutiny of the " leading light " of science ? 

These conditions have not been materially im- 
proved since 1874. If anything, they are less 
favourable, except, perhaps, in Italy. It is therefore 
not easy to come to a definite conclusion with 
regard to the proper interpretation of " material- 
isation " phenomena. 

One of the best summaries of facts and con- 
clusions was contributed by W. H. Harrison to the 
Spiritualist of May 1, 1874. It is as follows: — 



SPIRIT FORMS 275 

"SPIRIT FORMS 

" During the past two or three years the ' full 
form ' manifestations have been developing in Eng- 
land with considerable rapidity ; these important 
phenomena have been closely watched by us from 
the first, to the extent of attendance at probably 
more than a hundred stances in all, with different 
mediums, in whose presence spirit forms are obtained. 
A useful purpose may therefore be served by 
occasionally summing up what is known, what is 
not known, and what it is desirable to know upon 
this subject. 

" Physical Characteristics of the Spirit Forms 

"Before the manifestation was obtained in England, 
it was naturally thought that the advent of spirit 
forms would settle several vexed questions hanging 
over the subject of spirit identity, but the first 
result in this respect was disappointment. When 
we first saw, by the artificial light produced by the 
spirits, Mr. Williams's Katie King, she had the 
features of the medium, spiritualised in expression, 
and paler in colour ; when his John King was after- 
wards seen, he had a large black beard, it was true, 
but on closely examining his features, as we have 
several times done in a good light, they were dis- 
tinctly, to a large extent, the features of Mr. Williams. 
When Miss Cook's Katie was first seen, she also had 



276 INTERPRETATION 

features to a large extent the duplicate of those of 
the medium. Mr. Allsop, who has seen much of 
Mr. Hearne's Katie and John King in a good light, 
testifies also to their features being like those of 
the medium. Yet the media themselves were not 
released from the test conditions imposed, and ex- 
hibited in the trance by spirits, as they have been 
frequently held or seen in one place by responsible 
witnesses, while their duplicate forms, dressed in 
white drapery, were seen at the same time a few 
feet distant. Once we sat close by the side of Mr. 
Williams at a public circle, and had tight hold of 
his hand and arm, while the massive form of John 
King, robed in white drapery, was floating high up 
over the centre of the table ; his features were 
clearly seen by everybody present ; they were dup- 
licates of those of Mr. Williams, but paler ; his eyes 
and lips could be seen moving as he talked ; the 
bottom of his bust was inclined towards Mr. Williams, 
on a level, and a little in front of the natural position 
of Mr. Williams's head. Mr. Williams, who was held 
by both hands all through the sSance, was not visible 
on this occasion at the same time as John King, the 
light produced by the spirits illuminating the bust 
only. Whenever partial forms, such as busts and 
spirit hands or arms have been produced, we have 
never seen the end of them next to the medium, 
the cabinet door, or darkness, or a curtain always 
cutting off the view. Others may have had different 



NO SHADOW GHOSTS 277 

experience. In the days of early development Miss 
Cook was not entranced when the manifestations 
were going on, and she used to complain nervously, 
from the dark room used as a cabinet, of the un- 
pleasantness of being shut up alone with a 'creature 
who was going about with head and arms, but no 
body or legs. One night recently, while Miss Cook 
was entranced at Mr. Luxmoore's house, and Katie 
could only show her head and shoulders, she said 
that if we could then see her legs they would be 
found to merge into those of the medium. The 
effect of entrancement of the medium seems 
chiefly to be to secure passivity, and to strengthen 
the manifestations ; Miss Cook has seen the mate- 
rialised full form of Katie only once or twice in her 
life, and then only for a few seconds, though she 
often sees her clairvoyantly. Mr. Williams has 
never seen the materialised full form of John King 
at all. 

" The materialised forms, when felt, are to all 
intents and purposes just like ordinary human 
beings. We have never seen an orthodox shadow 
ghost, or part of a shadow ghost, and believe such 
to be myths so far as normal vision is concerned. 
A year or more before spirit faces began regularly 
to show themselves in England, considerable sensa- 
tion was created by a report in the Spiritualist of 
Mr. Harrison having felt the head of Mr. Hearne's 
Katie ; he felt it all over, and passed his lingers 



278 INTERPRETATION 

over her teeth and tongue ; these were wet, breath 
was coming out of the mouth, and the teeth could 
bite; in short, it was just like a human head, 
though placed where a human head could by no 
possibility be. 

" As all these things gradually became known, the 
question of spirit identity was left in as great a fog 
as ever. These spirits, while materialised, know 
little or nothing more than the medium, nor do 
they show more information than a mesmeric 
sensitive could gain by thought-reading or clair- 
voyant powers. Are they the spirits of the 
mediums unconsciously acting a part in a dream, 
and temporarily clothed afresh with matter ? Ap- 
parently not, for they are clear headed and sprightly 
enough ; moreover, when the spirit is partly ma- 
terialised and the medium wide awake, the two will 
argue or quarrel, or sympathise with each other, 
and sometimes go to the extent of playfully slapping 
one another, so that both the material bodies are 
governed at the same time by intelligence. We 
have never heard a ' voice ' or ' full form ' medium, 
and the attendant spirit speak at the same time. 
Sometimes they will speak in very quick succession, 
and enthusiastic witnesses have remarked — ' There ! 
did you hear them speaking together ? ' But after 
attending some hundreds of voice stances we never 
have heard them speaking together. The spirits 
say that they draw their power to speak chiefly from 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 279 

the lungs of the medium, and partly from the lungs 
of some of the sitters in the circle ; we have known 
the voices of sitters at a circle to be partially 
weakened by the stance, though they have said 
little or nothing during the sitting ; in one instance 
a clerical gentleman present could only speak in a 
whisper for two or three days afterwards. Some 
years ago at Mrs. Mary Marshall's celebrated stances 
at 13 Bristol Gardens, Paddington, we frequently 
heard John King, and the spirit calling himself 
Roger Bacon speaking at the same time, but not 
at the same time as the medium ; whether both 
these spirits were simultaneously drawing voice 
power from her, or whether one was drawing 
power from Mr. Marshall, or some other medium 
present, we do not know. 

" The spirit forms themselves, and their various 
parts, differ considerably in dimensions at different 
sittings with the same mediums, and when the 
faces alone instead of the full forms were shown, 
these variations were far more marked, perhaps 
because the spirits could concentrate more power 
upon a smaller surface. To disarm premature 
criticisms of casual witnesses at bad stances, and 
to avoid the charge of exaggerating, we used to 
publish that the heads were merely duplicates of 
that of the medium. The consequence was that 
one evening at Miss Cook's, when the correspondent 
of the Daily Telegraph and two celebrated photo- 



2 50 INTERPRETATION 

grapliers were present, and Katie came up with a 
bony cadaverous-looking head, half as big again as 
the head of Miss Cook, though bearing points of 
resemblance to it, the observers were startled, and 
said that it was not fair to the medium to publish 
that there was great similarity in the features. At 
other stances also, on no better foundation than one 
evening's experience, the opposite fault would be 
found, and complaints made that statements were 
published that there was any difference at all. The 
self-confidence of many of the witnesses, and their 
perfect satisfaction that what they saw in one visit, 
and the inferences which they drew in addition, 
settled the whole question, and outweighed alto- 
gether the knowledge and opinions of those who 
had had months of experience was remarkable, and 
was as interesting a study almost as the spirit 
forms themselves. The more intelligent and re- 
liable the witness, the less hasty were the con- 
clusions, and the less self - confident was the 
individual. Some had the profound conviction 
that if they saw such and such a test and 
published it (which they were perfectly ready to 
do if they could get it), then everybody would 
believe. There was never a more fatal error. 
These full form manifestations would never be 
accepted by the public on the testimony of any one 
man, and many of those who candidly and modestly 
enough expressed the opinion that their verdict 



MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS 28 I 

would settle everything, were generally those whose 
fiat would exercise little or no influence at all. 
Without knowing it, the sitters at stances are often 
passing through as severe a series of moral tests as 
the medium. 

" Mental Characteristics of the Spirit Forms 

" Seeing that these material forms gave little 
evidence of the personal identity of departed 
spirits, the next question was, ' What are their 
mental characteristics ? ' Nearly as much those 
of the mediums as the physical features, and 
there are those who have expressed the opinion 
that the lower mental characteristics of the medium, 
such as love of flattery, egotism, and so on, are 
chiefly duplicated in the forms. Although much 
may be cited in favour of this view, we think that 
the facts are due chiefly to the flattery and deference 
frequently expressed by the sitters present ; we 
have sometimes heard high and good teachings 
given through these forms, when the tone of the 
circle has been such as to demand the same, 
though sometimes the utterances have been lower 
than the average level or desires of the circles. 
Taking the physical manifestations all the way 
through, their mental and moral character is 
decidedly much lower than the average character 
of spirit messages given through trance and clair- 
voyant mediums. 



2 82 interpretation 

" Spirit Identity in Connection with Full 
Form Manifestations 

" We do not know that any of these voice spirits 
— any of the John Kings, John Watts, Jack Todds, 
Peters, Florences, or Katies — have satisfactorily 
proved their identity ; perhaps nobody has taken 
sufficient pains to search out old documents to 
verify their statements. The answers they give 
when questioned on the point of identity are much 
those which the medium might give when speculat- 
ing as to who or what the spirit might be. We 
have some reason to suppose that although at the 
various stances with the same medium, the spirit 
face or form is physically nearly the same, the intel- 
ligence governing the form is sometimes an entirely 
different one. After the recent outrage at Miss 
Cook's, the medium was very ill for several weeks; 
bad spirits sometimes controlled her ; one of them 
spoke roughly, demanded brandy, said what circle 
he habitually frequented, and made her get out of 
bed and sleep on the cold floor one cold night. 
The touch of her mother, or of some other member 
of the family, would sometimes drive off these 
influences, and she would wake with a haggard 
look, as if from an uneasy dream. A few full- 
form stances were held during the first week or two 
afterwards, at which the Katie form appeared, but 
at later stances the intelligence governing what was 



MORAL CHARACTERISTICS 283 

to all appearance the same form, said that she 
knew nothing about the previous stances, and that 
another spirit had been personating her. If the 
intelligence behind these forms changes often, it 
explains why Mr. Williams's John King sometimes 
shows accurate knowledge of events which once 
took place at Mrs. Marshall's stances, but usually 
knows nothing about them. It will account for 
Mrs. Perrin's John King once being able at Mrs. 
Berry's, when we were present, to describe in 
minute detail to Mr. Peebles a boisterous seance Mr. 
Peebles had had years ago with a John King in 
America. It will account, also, for these voice 
spirits saying and doing good things at one time 
and bad ones at another. The interests and 
thoughts of the mediums and these spirits are 
very closely allied, and we know that if the mediums 
firmly resolve to do wrong, the spirits will not only 
help them, but adopt subterfuges to attempt to 
screen them from the consequences of their mis- 
deeds. Sometimes, again, they will strongly warn 
the medium against doing wrong ; if the medium 
persist, it may be that the higher spirit is then 
obliged to go, and a lower one, but with the same 
physical voice and external characteristics, takes 
its place. 



284 interpretation 

" Sensations of the Medium Dujring the 

Seances 

" Mr. Williams is in a dead trance all through the 
stances, and remembers nothing when he wakes up. 
It is usually the same with Miss Cook, but some- 
times she has a dreamy recollection of having seen 
the sitters in the circle. Katie says that this is 
because she (Katie) not only uses matter from the 
body of the medium, but some of the thoughts and 
brain of the medium in manifesting, and that if she 
does not put these back properly, Miss Cook, on 
waking, finds some of Katie's recollections feebly 
mingling with her own. The day after the outrage 
at the circle, Mr. Charles Blackburn called on Miss 
Cook, and asked her what were her first sensations 
on coming to afterwards, and he thoughtfully wrote 
down and sent us her replies. She said she felt as 
if her brain were on fire, and it was this pain which 
caused her to give the succession of shrieks ; then 
she thought, ' I hope they have not hurt my Katie ! ' 
This would seem to have been reflex mental action, 
originating in a thought of Katie's, ' I hope they 
have not hurt my medium.' 

" As it is absolutely certain, and scientifically de- 
monstrated, that in these physical manifestations 
there are two living forms, one inside and one out- 
side the cabinet, it is plain that if a person breaks 
faith and seizes one of them, the two must amalga- 



SENSATIONS OF THE MEDIUM 285 

mate, for it is not conceivable that a human being 
should be created by the act, and a Katie King 
brought down or up to live permanently in this 
world. Therefore, it is also not conceivable that 
those two forms could be violently and unexpectedly 
brought together, without killing or seriously injur- 
ing the medium. The spirits say that, when fully 
formed, they are of full weight, half of their weight 
being taken from members of the circle, and that 
the medium is half weight, a point which Mr. Crookes 
might do much good by determining by experiment. 
If the statement be reliable, it would seem more 
natural that the half weight should fly to the seized 
full weight than the reverse, but Katie asserts that 
she would have melted away from the legs upwards, 
and the medium been found dead in the cabinet. 
Whether this is reliable, or whether the deep con- 
viction of the medium governed the utterance of 
the spirit, we have no means of knowing. Mr. 
Dunphy and Mr. Bielfield, who were quietly sitting 
where they could see the back of the form when it 
was seized, agree in stating that it appeared to begin 
to go about the legs, but the moment was an excit- 
ing one, so that perhaps the observation should for 
the present be considered to establish a point of 
possibility rather than of actuality. 



2 86 interpretation 

" The Drapery of the Forms 

" Where does the white drapery come from ? In 
the case of Miss Cook's Katie it is always as white 
as snow, and the dress varies in shape nearly every 
evening. It feels material enough. Once she cut 
a piece off, which she said she had materialised so 
that it would keep. Miss Douglas took it to Messrs. 
Howell and James's, and asked them to match it ; 
they said that they could not, and that they believed 
it to be of Chinese manufacture. Spirits can carry 
solid things from place to place hundreds of miles 
apart, as Baron Kirkup has proved over and over 
again. All the attempts of those who have had 
experience with different mediums to pierce the 
mystery of the source whence the drapery comes, are 
conflicting in their results, and we are unable to give 
an approximately satisfactory answer or speculation 
on the point. We can give evidence that in the 
case of the Davenport Brothers, Mr. Williams, Miss 
Cook, and Mr. Hearne, the spirits have the power 
either of duplicating the dress proper of the medium, 
or of not doing so, as they please. 

"A Provisional Hypothesis to Cover 
the Facts 

" Our general hypothesis of the whole matter is 
that the manifestations are not produced by the 
temporarily (wholly or partially) freed spirit of the 



_____ 



DRAPERY 287 

medium, but by an independent spirit, who by the 
mesmeric exercise of will power, and by other 
methods unknown, can subdue and get control of 
much of the brain and body and clothes of the 
medium, and come out and show itself limited in 
thought, and word, and deed, by these elements 
which it has again abnormally borrowed from the 
material world. A strong bond of self-interest 
unites the spirit and the medium ; they appear to 
share each other's spiritual, mental, and physical 
pleasures, just as in a lesser degree the fact has 
been noticed in mesmerism, that the sensitive and 
the mesmeriser often experience each other's sensa- 
tions. Perhaps an earth-bound spirit may thus 
live a partial earth-life over again, through a 
medium in sympathy with its tastes and pleasures, 
and sometimes possibly both medium and spirit 
may be raised or degraded together, by the example 
or teachings of the mortals around." 

We see, then, that in 1874 the question of the 
independent personality of the "spirit form" could 
not be satisfactorily decided on the evidence then 
available. Since that date, materialised forms have 
been recorded a good deal, but not so fully nor with 
the same care. Hands and faces are fairly common, 
though they are usually produced only in the dark, 
and are therefore less valuable evidentially. 

For our purposes (i.e. for shedding some new 
light on the question of immortality) it is not of 



288 INTERPRETATION 

fundamental importance whether " Katie King " was 
a " double " or replica of Florence Cook, or an inde- 
pendent entity manifesting her presence temporarily 
on earth with the help of material borrowed partly 
from the medium. The importance of the records 
lies in the fact that a fully formed human organism 
could be manifested and apparently " created " in a 
few minutes, and could disappear as rapidly. 

According to our psychophysical theory, this 
occurrence would take place as follows. We shall 
distinguish the two alternatives. 

(a) " Katie King " an Independent Entity. — She 
must then be regarded as inhabiting the atmosphere 
ordinarily. Finding her medium suitably disposed, 
she " enters " the medium's body, diffusing her 
" psychomeres " through it until they fill up its 
outline. This act places her in touch with mundane 
conditions. The psychomeres then temporarily take 
up (or resume ?) their mundane function of collect- 
ing and arranging the best material available for 
the formation of the human cell-body. This is 
most readily abstracted from the medium, but such 
abstraction must have its limits, imposed by the 
requirements of the medium's organism, which will 
naturally resist any excessive drain. The remaining 
material is then probably abstracted from the other 
sitters. This mingling of parts of the physical 
organisms of the sitters accounts for the necessity 
of a certain minimum of " harmony " in the circle. 



ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES 289 

The visiting entity is thus provided with a 
temporary body. Her mind is her own, but it will 
of course be strongly influenced by the surround- 
ings. The bodily resemblance to the medium will 
be paralleled by a mental kinship. The visitor 
will naturally fall in with the language, dialect, 
and prevailing tone of the assembly. The object of 
the visit being, so to speak, a social one, everything 
will be designed accordingly. The conventions or 
prejudices of the company will be respected. Their 
ideas will be largely shared. The independence of 
the " spirit " will be bounded on all sides by the 
expectations and views of the company, and any 
irregularity will be promptly checked by the im- 
perative necessity for the harmony of the circle. 
Hence the " cockney accent," the " triviality," the 
clothes, the commonplace accomplishments of the 
visitor, which have so often been ridiculed in this 
connection. 

(b) " Katie King " a " double " of Florence Cook — 
If the " spirit form " is a replica of the medium, 
it must be regarded either as an externalisation of 
the medium's own soul, or as a temporary fission 
of the medium's bodily and psychic personality. 
The former alternative is suggested by Richet's and 
other observations of cases of double or multiple 
personality. There are well-established cases of 
two distinct psychic personalities alternately in- 
habiting the same body, but if we accept the spirit 

T 



290 INTERPRETATION 

hypothesis in that connection we simply reduce 
our case b to case a, and in view of the material 
hitherto studied, there is very little to say against 
our doing so. 1 

A fission of the medium's soul must not be 
regarded as a priori inadmissible, in view of the 
known prevalence of fission in the lower organisms. 
That the two entities thus produced are seemingly 
independent, and sometimes even in incipient 
opposition, must not surprise us when we recall 
the clear antagonism sometimes observed between 
parents and children. The materialisation process 
would be, on this view, a kind of birth, in which, 
however, rapidity takes the place of permanence, 
and the whole process is reversible ! 

It is this last characteristic which makes it so 
difficult to find a parallel in ordinary biological pro- 
cesses. Moreover, there appears to be no evidence 
of a gradual growth or waning in mental equip- 
ment. " Katie King " is as lively and talkative 
when she has " no legs to stand on " as when she 
is in full form. It will probably be found here 
also, as in many other departments of kindred in- 
quiry, that the " spirit hypothesis " is the simplest, 
and involves the minimum of risky assumptions. 

1 The only objection is based on cases where the two personalities 
have eventually become fused into one (see the Hanna case in Sidis 
and Goodhart's "Multiple Personality"). But such fusion of souls 
is not more difficult to conceive than the division of a soul into 
two parts, as in protozoic fission. 



SPIRIT HYPOTHESIS 29 1 

We, to whom the survival of the soul-body is a 
reasonable solution of the problem of immortality, 
cannot find any difficulty in conceiving that a fair 
proportion of souls may, for various reasons, desire 
a short spell of human intercourse. The air must 
be full of them, and although such intercourse is 
not normal, and may possibly not be altogether 
desirable, we, who see in our city-life so much 
undoubted suffering and evil, cannot afford to close 
the door against anything that offers the slightest 
prospect of increasing our knowledge of the essential 
conditions of life, and thus holds out a new hope to 
the sufferers. 

The mechanism of materialisation offers a number 
of difficult problems for further investigation. Even 
granting that the psychomeres of a departed spirit 
can resume their directive functions, it is difficult 
to see how they can, in a few minutes, produce 
such comparatively permanent structures as bones 
and teeth. Yet it must be remembered that the 
process is simply an acceleration of what we see 
every day in the growth of infants. The drapery 
offers a problem of a different kind, though the 
power that can produce the infinitely complex 
human organism must find it mere child's play to 
construct something as coarse as even the finest 
muslin is in comparison with human tissues. 
Drapery is usually produced in great abundance. 1 

1 See Mine. d'Esperance's " Shadowland." 



292 INTERPRETATION 

If we adopt some such hypothesis as is here 
sketched out, what shall we say to the attempts 
to " expose " mediums by seizing or intercepting 
the materialised forms ? To take a rather obvious 
human parallel, it is an act about as brutal as that 
of violently tearing a sucking babe off the mother's 
breast, except that in the medium's case the 
connection is probably much more intimate. If, 
however, it could be successfully and completely 
accomplished, this is what we might expect as the 
result : the medium would be found to be very 
much emaciated, weighing, in fact, about half the 
normal weight. The materialised form, having lost 
touch with its sustainer, would collapse in a struc- 
tureless heap and then dissolve into vapour. The 
medium, if not seriously injured or killed, would 
take a long time to recover, and the more susceptible 
sitters might participate in the damage inflicted. 

As matters stand, the alleged " exposures " of 
honest mediums have usually been rendered harm- 
less by the prompt recombination of the two forms. 
The drapery, being usually the last to disappear, 
has often been found on the mediums, and thus 
has given very convincing primd facie " evidence " 
of trickery ! This explanation does not, of course, 
dispose of the few duly authenticated cases of the 
real exposure of fraudulent mediums. In any case, 
it is only fair to ask that the evidence of such 
exposures should be as carefully and impartially 



RISKS AND LIMITATIONS 293 

sifted as the evidence in favour of the genuine 
phenomena, instead of being, as it usually is, ac- 
cepted without the slightest show of criticism. 

A careful study of these most important ma- 
terialisation phenomena is bound to shed valuable 
light on physiology and pathology, But enough 
has been said to make it clear that the phenomena 
are not only rare, but risky. They should be studied 
only by duly qualified persons, and then not in the 
spirit of a kind of psychic vivisection, but with 
scrupulous regard to the physical, mental, and moral 
health of the exceptionally endowed being through 
whom the phenomena are obtained. 



CHAPTER IV 

SUPERNORMAL PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

The phenomena of raps and table-tilting were in- 
vestigated in the years 1869-1871, twenty years 
after they had first attracted attention in America, 
by a committee appointed by the London Dialectical 
Society, under the presidency of the late Sir John 
Lubbock, Bart., M.P. 1 They reported, among other 
things : — 

" 1. That sounds of a very varied character, ap- 
parently proceeding from articles of furniture, the 
floor and walls of the room — the vibrations ac- 
companying which sounds are often distinctly per- 
ceptible to the touch — occur, without being produced 
by muscular action or mechanical contrivance. 

" 2. That movements of heavy bodies take place 
without mechanical contrivance of any kind, or 
adequate exertion of muscular force by those 
present, and frequently without contact or con- 
nection with any person. 

"3. That these sounds and movements often 
occur at the time and in the manner asked for by 

1 See the Report of the Committee of the Dialectical Society, 
published by Longmans, Green & Co. 



MECHANICAL PHENOMENA 295 

persons present, and by means of a simple code 
of signals, answer questions and spell out coherent 
communications." 

One of the sub-committees of the Dialectical 
Society reported : — 

" Your committee studiously avoided the em- 
ployment of professional or paid mediums. All 
were members of the committee, persons of social 
position, of unimpeachable integrity, with no pecu- 
niary object, having nothing to gain by deception, and 
everything to lose by detection of imposture." 

In another part of the report the same committee 
stated : — 

"After a committee of eleven persons had been 
sitting round a dining-table for forty minutes, and 
various motions and sounds had occurred, the chairs 
were turned with their hacks to the table, at about 
nine inches from it. All present then knelt upon 
their chairs, placing their arms upon the backs of 
the chairs. In this position the feet were of course 
turned away from the table, and by no possibility 
could be placed under it or touch the floor. The 
hands were extended over the table at about four 
inches from the surface. 

" In this position, contact with any part of the 
table was physically impossible. 

" In less than a minute the table, untouched, 
moved four times ; at first about five inches to one 



296 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

side, then about twelve inches to the opposite side, 
then about four inches, and then about six inches. 

" The hands were next placed on the backs of 
the chairs and about a foot from the table. In this 
position, the table again moved four times, over 
spaces varying from four to six inches. Then all 
the chairs were removed twelve inches from the 
table. All knelt as before. Each person folded his 
hands behind his back, his body being about 
eighteen inches from the table, and having the 
back of the chair between himself and the table. 
In this position the table again moved four times, 
in like manner as before. In the course of this 
conclusive experiment, and in less than half-an- 
hour, the table moved, without contact or possi- 
bility of contact with any person present, twelve 
times, the movements being in different directions, 
and some according to the request of different 
persons present. 

" The table was then carefully examined, turned 
upside down, and taken to pieces, but nothing 
was discovered. The experiment was conducted 
throughout in the full light of gas above the table. 

" Altogether your committee have witnessed up- 
wards of fifty similar motions without contact on 
eight different evenings, in the houses of different 
members of your committee, and with the applica- 
tion of the most careful tests their collective in- 
telligence could devise." 



PRIVATE EXPERIMENTS 297 

These phenomena have been observed with special 
care by Dr. J. Maxwell of Bordeaux. 1 As regards 
the conditions under which they may be obtained, 
these are Avell described from the point of view of 
the spirit hypothesis in the following instructions, 
quoted from the Spiritualist : — 

"How to form Spirit Circles 

" An experimental trial at home, among family 
friends and relatives, often gives the most satisfac- 
tory evidence of the reality of spiritual phenomena, 
and this is the best way for inquirers to begin. At 
the same time, as no fully developed medium is 
present among those who have never obtained 
manifestations before, possibly there may be no 
results. Nevertheless, it is a very common thing 
for striking manifestations to be obtained in this 
way at the first sitting of a family circle ; perhaps 
for every successful new circle thus started without 
a medium, there are three or four failures, but no 
accurate statistics on this point have yet been 
collected. Consequently, to save time, investigators 
should do as the Dialectical Society did, form several 
new circles, with 110 spiritualist or professional 
medium present, and at one or other of them results 
will probably be obtained. When once manifesta- 

1 See his " Metapsychical Phenomena," translated by Laura I. 
Finch. Duckworth, London, 1905. 



298 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

tions have been obtained they will gradually increase 
in power and reliability at successive sittings. The 
following is a good plan of action : — 

" 1. Let the room be of a comfortable temperature, 
but cool rather than warm — let arrangements be 
made that nobody shall enter it, and that there 
shall be no interruption for one hour during the 
sitting of the circle. 

" 2. Let the circle consist of four, five, or six 
individuals, about the same number of each sex. 
Sit round an uncovered wooden table, with all the 
palms of the hands in contact with its top surface. 
Whether the hands touch each other or not is 
usually of no importance. Any table will do, just 
large enough to conveniently accommodate the 
sitters. The removal of a hand from the table 
for a few seconds does no harm, but when one of 
the sitters breaks the circle by leaving the table it 
sometimes, but not always, very considerably delays 
the manifestations. 

" 3. Before the sitting begins, place some pointed 
lead-pencils and some sheets of clean writing paper 
on the table, to write down any communications 
that may be obtained. 

" 4. People who do not like each other should 
not sit in the same circle, for such a want of 
harmony tends to prevent manifestations, except 
with well-developed physical mediums : it is not 
yet known why. Belief or unbelief has no influence 



SPIRITUALISTIC METHODS 299 

on the manifestations, but an acrid feeling against 
them is a weakening influence. 

"5. Before the manifestations begin, it is well to 
engage in general conversation or in singing, and it 
is best that neither should be of a frivolous nature. 
A prayerful, earnest feeling among the members of 
the circle gives the higher spirits more power to 
come to the circle, and makes it more difficult for 
the lower spirits to get near. 

" 6. The first symptom of the invisible power at 
work is often a feeling like a cool wind sweeping 
over the hands. The first manifestations will 
probably be table-tiltings or raps. 

" 7. When motions of the table or sounds are 
produced freely, to avoid confusion, let one person 
only speak, and talk to the table as to an intelligent 
being. Let him tell the table that three tilts or 
raps mean ' Yes,' one means ' No,' and two mean 
' Doubtful,' and ask whether the arrangement is 
understood. If three signals be given in answer, 
then say, ' If I speak the letters of the alphabet 
slowly, will you signal every time I come to the 
letter you want, and spell us out a message ? ' 
Should three signals be given, set to work on the 
plan proposed, and from this time an intelligent 
system of communication is established. 

" 8. Afterwards the question should be put, • Are 
we sitting in the right order to get the best manifes- 
tations ? ' Probably some members of the circle will 



300 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

then be told to change seats with each other, and the 
signals will be afterwards strengthened. Next ask, 
' Who is the medium ? ' When spirits come assert- 
ing themselves to be related or known to anybody 
present, well-chosen questions should be put to test 
the accuracy of the statements, as spirits out of the 
body have all the virtues and all the failings of 
spirits in the body. 

"9. A powerful physical medium is usually a 
person of an impulsive, affectionate, and genial 
nature, and very sensitive to mesmeric influences. 
The majority of media are ladies. 

" The best manifestations are obtained when the 
medium and all the members of the circle are 
strongly bound together by the affections, and are 
thoroughly comfortable and happy ; the manifesta- 
tions are born of the spirit, and shrink somewhat 
from the lower mental influences of the earth. 
Family circles, with no strangers present, are 
usually the best. 

" Possibly at the first sitting of a circle symptoms 
of other forms of mediumship than tilts or raps may 
make their appearance." 

As regards " raps," Maxwell x says : — 

" They manifest themselves as the expression of 
a will distinct from those of the observers. Such 
is the appearance of the phenomenon. A curious 

1 " Metapsychical Phenomena," p. 83. 



■__a^^« 



RAPS 30I 

fact is the result — not only do the raps reveal 
themselves as the productions of intelligent action, 
they also manifest intelligence in response to any 
particular rhythm or code which might be demanded. 

" Often the different raps reply to one another ; 
and one of the most interesting experiences one can 
have is to hear these raps clear and resonant, or 
soft and muffled, sounding simultaneously on the 
floor, table, furniture, &c. 

" I have had exceptionally good opportunities of 
studying very closely this curious phenomenon of 
raps, and I think I have arrived at some conclusions. 
The first and most certain is their undoubtedly 
close connection with the muscular movements of 
the sitters. I may sum up my observations on this 
point in the three following propositions : — 

" 1. All muscular movements, however slight, are 
generally followed by a rap. 

" 2. The intensity of the raps does not strike me 
as being in proportion to the movement made. 

" 3. The intensity of the raps does not seem 
to me to vary proportionately according to their 
distance from the medium." 

The synchronism of raps with slight muscular 
movements of the medium (which themselves may 
be supernormal in origin) misled a Cambridge com- 
mittee into declaring that the raps were all produced 
by the medium (Eusapia Paladino). Sir William 



302 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

Crookes obtained raps in great variety, 1 both with 
Mr. D. D. Home and with Miss Kate Fox. 2 Their 
tonality varied within a wide range. They re- 
sembled pin-pricks, sparks from an induction coil, 
detonations, metallic taps, scratching, percussion, 
or even the twittering of birds. Almost always 
they have a vibratory character, like a quickly 
damped oscillation. Crookes observed them on the 
trunk of a tree, in a pane of glass, in an iron wire, 
a tambourine, the roof of a cab, the floor of a 
theatre, and a sheet of paper suspended in the air. 

Crookes classifies the supernormal phenomena 
observed by him under thirteen different heads, as 
follows : — 

1. Movement of heavy bodies with contact, but 
without mechanical exertion. 

2. Percussive and other allied sounds. 

3. Alteration of weight. 

4. Movement of heavy substances at a distance. 

5. Levitations. 

6. Levitation of human beings. 

7. Movement of small articles without contact. 

8. Luminous appearances. 

1 See his " Besearches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism," re- 
printed from the Quarterly Journal of Science by James Burns, 
1874. 

2 Miss Fox and her sister are said to have " confessed " at a later 
date that they produced the raps by the snapping of their joints ! 
Such " confession " ought to be received with the same amount of 
philosophic doubt as the records of the phenomena themselves. It 
is a matter of comparative credibility of witnesses. 



WEIGHING OF EVIDENCE 303 

9. Appearance of hands, either self-luminous, or 
visible by ordinary light. 

10. Direct writing. 

11. Phantom forms and faces. 

12. Direct evidence of external intelligence. 

13. Miscellaneous, including apports of objects 
and their passage through apparently impassable 
obstacles. 1 

To any one who carefully studies the accounts of 
the phenomena impartially, who confronts Faraday, 
Carpenter, Tyndall, and Podmore on the one hand 
with Crookes, Wallace, Varley, Myers, Lodge, 
Barrett, Richet, Hare, and Lombroso on the other, 
the conclusion in favour of the objective and bond- 
fide character of these supernormal occurrences is 
irresistible. It is quite a different matter when 
we endeavour to explain them in terms of better 
known phenomena. We are taken so far out of 
reach of known forces and forms of energy that the 
first feeling is one of utter bewilderment. Yet this 
attitude is not a permanent one to anybody en- 
dowed with the true scientific spirit, to whom new 
phenomena are simply a challenge and an incentive 
to discover their laws. It is here that the average 
spiritualist's attitude falls short of the exigencies of 

1 For fuller accounts of these and kindred phenomena see 
" Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," by Sir Alfred Russell Wallace ; 
Nichols & Co., London, 1901. A hostile account is given by 
F. Podmore in his "History of Modern Spiritualism " (Methuen, 
London, 1902). 



304 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

the situation. He is bewildered and dumbfounded, 
and expects all other beholders to be the same. 
He " falls down and worships " heedless of the 
danger that the object of such worship might be 
unworthy of so much honour. He simply believes 
that " the spirits can do anything," and regards the 
wonderful manifestations referred to as so much 
evidence of their all but unlimited arbitrary power. 

An attitude like this (from which, however, many 
eminent spiritualists have been free) is not likely 
to commend itself to the scientifically trained mind. 
The very raison d'Stre of science is to find out the 
laws underlying all phenomena, however marvellous 
or extraordinary. If any department of new pheno- 
mena should become known which were above the 
law, and "miraculous " in the usual acceptation of the 
term, science would have to abdicate. It is therefore 
bound to deny the possibility of true " miracles," and 
to search for the causes of all inexplicable events. 

This attitude is considerably strengthened by the 
second article of scientific faith which we have con- 
sistently advocated in this book : That man is supreme 
in his own world. Here on the surface of the 
earth man is in command. His organs and faculties 
are best adapted to deal with the situation actually 
confronting him. He cannot count upon any super- 
natural help. He has absolute powers within his 
own sphere. Whatever improvements can be made 
in his lot must be made by himself. Whatever 



SUPREMACY OF MAN 305 

further powers he wants to exert must be evolved 
from within. This, it will be objected, is insub- 
ordination to the higher Power of the universe. It 
is no such thing. That Power is within us also — 

Tov yap kul yevo? ecr/uev, 

and we hold in our hands a signed blank cheque on 
the Universal Bank. 

If the soul-world makes incursions into our world, 
it does so because it is akin to ours. But it is less 
in touch with the actual conditions of terrene life 
than we are, and we must not expect the inter- 
course to be of any " practical utility." We must 
receive the visitors somewhat as a European monarch 
receives the Ambassador of the United States, a 
community which has absorbed many of his former 
subjects. The difference is that we all must emigrate 
by-and-by into the new territory, and that the 
conditions are more different than the}^ are in 
crossing the Atlantic. 

It is quite conceivable that denizens of the soul- 
world, kept within our sphere of influence either 
by natural affection or by the delight in old con- 
ditions and surroundings, may make special efforts 
to master the conditions under which communica- 
tion becomes possible. What these conditions are 
we can only surmise. On our new theory, material- 
isation appears to be more explicable than the 

u 



306 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

much more frequent and apparently simple physical 
phenomena. 

But we are driven to the conclusion that, just as 
organisms may be temporarily formed and perform 
the ordinary acts of social intercourse, so simpler 
effects may be brought about by accumulating 
energy at some point outside the bodies of the 
sitters. The tenuous soul-body with which we 
have been led to endow our departed friends would 
not ordinarily be able to produce any visible, audible, 
or tangible effect, but if it reduced its bulk to a 
small fraction of its ordinary size it would be able 
to exert considerable force. Thus, to put it into 
figures, a gaseous soul-body, reduced in linear size 
to one-half its former dimensions, would exert a 
pressure of about 100 lbs. per square inch, which 
would amply suffice to produce the most violent 
levitations and disturbances hitherto observed. 
Crookes says ("Researches," p. 89): "On five 
separate occasions, a heavy dining-table rose be- 
tween a few inches and 1^- feet off the floor, 
under special circumstances, which rendered tricking 
impossible." 

And further : " On one occasion I witnessed a 
chair, with a lady sitting on it, rise several inches 
from the ground. On another occasion the lady 
knelt on the chair in such manner that the four 
feet were visible to us. It then rose about three 
inches, remained suspended for about ten seconds, 



SOURCE OF POWER 307 

and then slowly descended. There are at least 
100 recorded instances of Mr. Home's rising from 
the ground, in the presence of as many separate 
persons." 

Such happenings as these require the expenditure 
of a certain amount of energy. This may be (and 
no doubt often is) derived from the sitters, but 
another possible source of supply is the natural 
heat of the air, which might be extracted by a 
process analogous to that practised by Maxwell's 
famous " demon." In this connection a remark b} r 
Crookes ("Researches," p. 86) is significant: — 

" These movements (and indeed I may say the 
same of every kind of phenomenon) are generally 
preceded by a peculiar cold air, sometimes amounting 
to a decided wind. I have had sheets of paper 
blown about by it, and a thermometer lowered 
several degrees. On some occasions, which I will 
subsequently give more in detail, I have not de- 
tected any actual movement of the air, but the 
cold has been so intense that I could only compare 
it to that felt when the hand has been within a 
few inches of frozen mercury." 

It is easily imagined why the meeting of a 
number of people under agreeable social surround- 
ings should be particularly favourable to such 
phenomena. There is then a vivid interchange of 
thought and emotion, a certain amount of " ex- 
trenalisation " of the soul which is no doubt pro- 



30S PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

vocative of a number of phenomena in which such 
extemalisation assumes extreme forms. Besides, 
such communion brings the higher link (or " knot ") 
which links up the community into play, and pro- 
bably has the power of attracting other intelligences 
of a similar character. 

In this connection it is well to say a word about 
the " demon " theory — a favourite one with clerical 
opponents of spiritualism. According to them, all 
the phenomena (whose reality they unhesitatingly 
admit) are produced by " devils " or even by the 
Arch-Demon himself! This is hardly the place in 
which to refute medieval superstitions, and we 
cannot judge the phenomena on such a 'priori 
grounds, especially as our point of view has all 
along been scientific rather than theological. We 
can only make inductions from the facts as we find 
them. These may be summarised as follows : — 

1. The communicating "spirits" are invariably 
of the order of development of the average of the 
sitters. 

2. They observe the social conventions of the circle. 

3. The communicating intelligences only operate 
temporarily, and as if with some hesitation and 
difficulty due to the unaccustomed element. 

4. The harm resulting from such communica- 
tions has been practically nil, and the risks are 
much smaller than in any research promising equally 
important results. 



ALLEGED DEMONIAC AGENCY 309 

5. Any "insanity" traceable to spiritism is negli- 
gible in comparison with, say, tlie cases of religious 
mania. 

6. If there is any " devil " in the circle, he is 
most likely identical with one of the sitters. 

It is quite possible that the majority of intelli- 
gences who are given to communicate in this 
manner are no higher than the average human 
being, neither devil nor angel, but glad to exert 
some activity redolent of earth-life. There is no 
reason why the investigator should not always be in 
full command of the situation. In fact, the pro- 
babilities are that the disappearance of many super- 
normal phenomena before the advance of civilisation 
is not due to the spread of " enlightenment " and the 
discrediting of myths, but to the, gradual 'prevailing of 
the organised will of the civilised community, which has 
not much use for supernormal phenomena, and eventually 
succeeds in banishing them from its fields. 



CHAPTER V 

PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 

What observations or happenings would be regarded 
as satisfactory proofs of the survival of physical 
death ? 

The question is much more difficult to answer 
than it appears at first sight, but it can be approached 
in several different ways. 

Even during ordinary earth-life the question of 
survival is sometimes fraught with almost insuper- 
able difficulties. Only a mother can, as a rule, say 
whether a baby, not seen since it was a year old, 
has survived in a young person of eighteen. And 
even then the proof of identity is usually some 
peculiar formation or birthmark, in the absence of 
which identification becomes impossible. 

We are often quite unable to recognise a school- 
fellow whom we have not seen for twenty years, and 
when we do, we rely more on mental than on physical 
characteristics. We exchange reminiscences, and 
probe each other's memories. If we could, at will, 
throw ourselves into the physical shapes Ave had 
at any previous period of our lives, identification 
might be considerably facilitated. But the physical 



IDENTIFICATION 3 I I 

organism is often misleading. Clothes are a help 
sometimes. But these can be put on as a disguise. 
There may be a striking likeness, and yet it may 
be quite deceptive. And even if it is identically 
the same physical organism that is before us, the 
individuality in possession of it may not be the 
person we are looking for. There may be a duplex 
personality, there may be possession or " control." 

We rely more upon reminiscences and mental 
characteristics simply because they are more varied 
than physical characteristics, and less likely to be 
unexpectedly duplicated. A man shows nearly the 
same face every day, but his conversation varies 
somewhat with every change of company, and the 
chances of a coincidence — of the repetition of the 
identical mental exchange — are very remote. Our 
ultimate test of identity must therefore always be 
an appeal to some community of memory, some 
event in which both our minds have participated. 

When we admit the possibility of telepathy or 
thought-transference, the proof of identity becomes 
exceedingly difficult. If I met a person whom I 
believed to be a long-lost friend, and asked him, as 
a test question, whether he remembered the name 
of a boat in which we used to sail on the lake, he 
might give the name correctly, but that might first 
have reached his mind by thought-transference 
from my own. If he mentioned facts of which I 
was unaware, and these proved afterwards to be true, 



312 PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 

he might have obtained these by thought-trans- 
ference or clairvoyance or some such abnormal 
process. 

In spite of all these difficulties, questions of 
identity -are usually solved satisfactorily in some 
way or other. 

In establishing the identity of a departed spirit, 
exactly the same difficulties occur, and exactly the 
same criteria are used. And finally, we may add 
that exactly the same land of evidence is obtained. 
We may deal with the two classes of evidence 
separately. 

1. Bodily. — Recognisable drawings, photographs, 
and phantasms of departed individuals have been 
obtained again and again. More frequently even, 
they have been described clairvoyantly. A well- 
authenticated case of the recognition of a materialised 
form is quoted in Light for August 17, 1907 : — ■ 

"A Recognised Materialisation 

" There are three methods of conducting psychical 
research which may be taken as typical of various 
schools of investigators ; one of these was recently 
illustrated by Professor Morselli when he said, after 
a series of sittings with a single medium of great 
power, though limited range : ' When I see that an 
A. R. Wallace and a Barrett are Spiritists, and that 
a Hyslop has become one through Mrs. Piper, then 



RECOGNISABLE MATERIALISATION 3 I 3 

I stop and meditate, and withdraw into the re- 
stricted, but positive, circle of my own observations, 
of my own experience.' Another method is that of the 
psychical researchers who raise all kinds of objec- 
tions which the actual witnesses never thought of 
meeting in advance, simply because under the cir- 
cumstances they were manifestly absurd or inappli- 
cable ; and the third is that of the patient critic 
who laboriously sifts the documentary evidence in 
order to find what circumstances are placed beyond 
doubt by the unanimous testimony of the observers. 
A record of this last kind, the result of an investi- 
gation by the late Alexander Aksakoff into a re- 
markable case of materialisation, has just come into 
our hands, and as no mention of it appears to have 
been made in Light at the time, we give a 
summary of the chief facts. The account is re- 
printed from Psychische Studien for March to 
May 1897. 

" A lady living in Cologne, Madame Antonie von 
Bille-Dahl, was told by a medium there that her 
husband, whom she had lost twenty-one years 
before, would be able to manifest to her if she could 
obtain a sitting with Madame d'Esperance at 
Gothenburg. This sitting took place on November 
25, 1895, at the house of Mr. Matthews Fidler, 
nearly twenty persons being present, among whom 
were Baroness Peyron, of Stockholm, Kammerherr 
von Krogh, of Copenhagen, and Herr Otto Ericsson, 



314 PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 

all of whom add tlieir written testimony to those of 
Madame von Bille-Dahl and of the medium herself. 
From a remark made by M. Aksakoff ifc would 
appear that this was probably the last sitting for 
materialisation ever given by Madame d'Esperance. 
We summarise the various reports. 

" The seance-room was the one ordinarily used in 
Mr. Fidler's house, having a pane of ground glass 
through which light came from another room. 
The cabinet was formed of a folding screen with 
curtains hung across the front. The medium, who 
wore a white dress, could be plainly seen against 
the dark background as she sat in front of the 
cabinet. Very soon a table, which had been placed 
in the cabinet, was moved out into the room. Then 
a luminous appearance to the right of the medium 
gradually formed itself into a human figure. The 
sitters who saw the face outlined against the light 
afterwards described the features to Madame von 
Bille-Dahl, and she recognised the description as 
that of her deceased husband. The form was not 
able to go to Madame von Bille-Dahl, and it was 
heard to call ' Toni.' Madame d'Esperance and 
Mr. Fidler asked if there was any one present 
named ' Toni,' and Madame von Bille-Dahl re- 
sponded and went up to the figure, which withdrew 
into the cabinet until it was half hidden by the 
curtains. Owing to failure of power, the face had 
by this time become formless and unrecognisable, 



MR. AKSAKOFF S CASE 3 I 5 

and was covered with spirit drapery, which had not 
been the case when it was first seen. The hands 
remained perfectly materialised, and were charac- 
teristic of the lady's husband ; these hands embraced 
and caressed her, as her husband used to do, and 
made the motion of kissing her at parting. 

" Madame d'Esperance, feeling as though she was 
being emptied of force, or melting away like a snow- 
figure in the sun, almost losing her hold on life, 
made a great effort and called out, ' Take her 
away ! ' At the same moment the form disappeared 
entirely ; Madame von Bille-Dahl searched all round 
the cabinet with her arms, but could find nothing ; 
then Mr. Fidler led her back to her place. Some 
other good phenomena followed at the same 
sitting. 

" M. Aksakoff observes that the most remarkable 
points are: (1) that the sitting was the result of an 
appointment made by the spirit of the deceased 
through another medium ; (2) the form appeared 
at first with uncovered head, and features sharply 
defined; (3) it became less definite after endeavour- 
ing to reach the sitter for whom it came, and had 
to retire and cover its head with the usual spirit- 
veiling ; (4) the hands were still distinctly recog- 
nisable; (5) the medium felt so exhausted that she 
had to call out, and after the form had completely 
disappeared she recovered strength. M. Aksakoff 
remarks that he had several times urged that 



316 PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 

Madame d'Esperance should speak while a material- 
ised form was visible, but the production of the 
phenomenon exhausted her so completely that she 
could not speak ; in this case, however, with a great 
effort, she managed to call out; (6) the complete 
and sudden disappearance of the materialised form ; 
Madame von Bille-Dahl, standing in the opening of 
the cabinet, searched it with her arms and could 
find no trace of any person or form. Though she 
did not see the features, which were described to 
her by others, Madame von Bille-Dahl was able to 
recognise her husband by the name by which he 
called her, by the hands, and by his manner of 
caressing her. She was a complete stranger to all 
present, and though she had signed her name 
' Antonie ' when writing for an appointment, she 
had said nothing about the pet name by which her 
husband had called her, and it was not at once 
recognised as applying to her. M. Aksakoff re- 
garded this case as very striking, both as regards 
the objective reality of the appearance and the 
evidence of identity." 

Some cases of the recognition of complete forms 
are described in Madame d'Esperance's autobio- 
graphical work, " Shadowland." 

But bodily resemblance is really no more eviden- 
tial in the case of departed friends than it is in the 
case of living mortals. The real tests must always 
be mental rather than physical. 



MENTAL TESTS 317 

2. Mental. — Many attempts to establish the sur- 
vival of departed human beings are recorded in 
' Spirit Identity," by " M.A. Oxon." (Rev. W. Stainton, 
Moses). 1 Perhaps the longest series of such attempts 
on record is that carried out by Dr. Hodgson with 
the American trance-writer, Mrs. Piper, and published 
at length in the Proceedings of the Society for Psy- 
chical Research. But the most interesting, and 
probably the most conclusive, series is that which 
has just been brought to a close through the 
mediumship of " Mrs. Holland " and Mrs.! Verrall, 
who received communications and cross-references 
to each other, from some of their own investigators 
who are recently deceased. To this evidence, which 
is to be published by the Society for Psychical Re- 
search, 2 Sir Oliver Lodge referred to as follows, in an 
address before a meeting of the Society in January 
last : — 

" We find the late Edmund Gurney, and the late 
Richard Hodgson, and the late F. W. H. Myers, 
with some other less-known names, constantly pur- 
porting to communicate with the express purpose 
of patiently proving their identity, and giving us 
correspondence between different mediums. We 
also find them answering specific questions in a 
manner characteristic of their known personalities, 

1 Recently reprinted by the London Spiritualist Alliance, 110 
St. Martin's Lane, W.O. 

2 See their Proceedings for June 1908. 



3 l8 PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 

and giving evidence of knowledge appropriate to 
them. We require definite and crucial proof — a 
proof difficult even to imagine as well as difficult to 
supply. The ostensible communicators realise the 
need of such proof just as fully as we do, and have 
done their best to satisfy the rational demand. 
Some of us think they have succeeded ; others are 
still doubtful. I am one of those who are of opinion 
that a good case has been made out, and that, as 
the best working hypothesis at the present time, it 
is legitimate to grant that lucid moments of inter- 
course with deceased persons may, in the best cases, 
supervene, amid a mass of supplementary material, 
quite natural in the circumstances, but mostly of a 
presumably subliminal and less evidential kind. 
The boundary between the present and the future 
is still substantial, but it is wearing thin in places ; 
and, like excavators engaged in boring a tunnel 
from opposite ends, amid the roar of water and 
other noises, we are beginning to hear, now and 
again, the strokes of the pickaxes of our comrades 
on the other side. What we have to announce is 
the reception by old but developing methods of 
carefully constructed evidence of identity, more 
exact and more nearly complete than perhaps ever 
before. The construction can exist quite as much 
on the other side of the partition as on our side ; 
indeed most, though not all of the inventive ingen- 
uity, has been on that side. There has been distinct 



SIR O. LODGES ANNOUNCEMENT 319 

co-operation between those on the material side and 
those on the immaterial side ; and we are at liberty 
not, indeed, to announce any definite conclusion, but 
to adopt as a working hypothesis the ancient doc- 
trine of a possible intercourse of intelligence between 
the material and some other, perhaps, ethereal order 
of existence." 

Light, the leading spiritualist organ, comments 
upon this as follows (February 15, 1908) : — 

" Sir Oliver Lodge's obvious but admirable illus- 
tration of the excavators, boring a tunnel from 
opposite ends, exactly describes what is happening — 
what, in fact, has been happening for a great many 
years. ' We are beginning,' he says, ' to hear now 
and again the strokes of the pickaxes of our com- 
rades on the other side.' ' Beginning ! ' Why, 
those strokes have been going on for at least 
three thousand years. The Bible reverberates with 
them, and, when the Canon was closed, those strokes 
went on. We are strongly inclined to think that, 
so far from coming up with something fresh in the 
world's history, we are only going back with much 
difficulty to the spot where the excavators on this 
side grew tired, or turned stupid, and dropped their 
pickaxes or used them against the excavators who 
wished to continue the work." 

That attempts at identification should be made 
from the other side can only be attributed to an 
affectionate solicitude of the departed for those 



320 PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 

left behind. For they have the advantage of an 
acquaintance with both forms of existence. For 
them the question is solved, and the motives impel- 
ling them to aid us in the matter can only be 
friendly, unless, perchance, they themselves require 
some evidence that their vanishing earth-memories 
are aught but the shadows of dreams. 

The search after proofs of identity would not be 
undertaken so laboriously but for the still almost 
overwhelming presumption against it in the scientific 
mind. When such views as we have here advocated 
come to be generally accepted, people will wonder 
why the survival and identity of individuals was 
ever seriously questioned. The real obstacle to their 
acceptance has hitherto been the lack of a rational 
theory of survival and immortality. That lack 
must be debited to the unreasonable demands of 
the various systems of theology, which have ended 
by driving the thinking portion of mankind into 
the totaldenial of a life after death. 



CHAPTER VI 

CONCLUSIONS 

We have now to survey the ground we have 
traversed, and sum up the conclusions at which 
we have been able to arrive. 

We found the thinking world practically in the 
grasp of a materialist view of life, even where it was 
professedly spiritual. Between the annihilation at 
death of the thorough materialist and the more 
grotesque eschatologies of some systems of theology, 
the only via media lay through a reluctant agnosti- 
cism which fell back discouraged before a problem 
so fraught with pitfalls. 

We traced this unhappy state of things to a 
radical evil of modern philosophies, 1 consisting in 
the duality of mind and matter, which at every 
turn confronted us with an insoluble problem, that 
of the nature and significance of " dead matter." 

We began by eliminating this difficulty in the 
only rational way, by substituting a philosophic 
monism for the prevailing philosophic dualism. We 
thus arrived at a form of " idealism " which differs 
from older forms in possessing a new feature. This 

1 Materialism cannot fitly be called a " philosophy." 

3 21 X 



322 CONCLUSIONS 

new feature is the reduction of the " laws of nature " 
to the laws of life of those universes of dimension- 
ally inferior orders which together we denote by the 
name of " matter." " Dead matter " is thus com- 
pletely eliminated from our system, being inter- 
preted in terms of Life, the only reality we are 
immediately cognisant of. 

We then proceeded to investigate those forms of 
life whose mentality is accessible to us, and which 
are the only forms hitherto recognised as endowed 
with " life " at all. We found them all to be 
aggregates or organisations of life units of all 
grades inferior to their own, arranged in a kind 
of hierarchy or system of government, with an 
infinite gradation from the most vital and essential 
to the least indispensable. We carried this rule 
to its furthest limit, in the light of the latest 
biological data, and found ourselves face to face 
with the directive elements disseminated through 
all cells of the body. The aggregate of these 
elements we identified with the soul, and any 
organised shape consisting of them alone we called 
the soul-body. The directive elements themselves 
we called by the new name of psychomeres. 

We investigated the physical properties of the 
soul-body considered as separated from the physical 
body, and found it to be of a gaseous nature and a 
consistency governed by the play of forces we are 
imperfectly acquainted with, but which may have 



THE FINDING OF THE SOUL 323 

some analogy with the unknown (probably electro- 
static or magnetic) forces which account for the 
cohesion of the physical body, or any other physical 
aggregate. 

We found that such a body, in full possession of 
all the memories of the individual it represented, 
would naturally inhabit the air, and we provision- 
ally located the abode of such soul-bodies of departed 
human individuals in the earth's atmosphere, giving 
evidence sufficient to establish a prima facie case 
in favour of our hypothesis. 

We showed that this hypothesis led to no 
absurdities of a qualitative or quantitative character, 
and was quite consistent with the known phenomena 
of life and death and with the permanence of the 
conditions of earth-life as we know them. 

Finally, we quoted a number of duly authenti- 
cated metapsychical phenomena observed in recent 
years and pointed out their consistency with the 
views here advocated, and the lines along which 
their full interpretation must be looked for. 

It now remains to indicate the directions in 
which these principles may be further applied, and 
their general bearing on the fate of the human 
race. 

In the first place, the survival of bodily death 
has now become a thinkable contingency — we might 
almost say a calculable event. It enters into the 
domains of physics and of physiology. It is 



324 CONCLUSIONS 

annexed to the realm of science. The soul has 
become measurable and weighable, and only requires 
suitable instruments to become as familiar and 
tractable as the physical organism. That this is a 
materialist view is now no longer a valid objection, 
since all matter is endowed with life, and the soul 
differs from ordinary matter only by being endowed 
with our kind of life. 

The psychomeres are also the most permanent 
constituents of the body. They remain when all 
else changes. The other material is of all grades 
of complexity. Some of it is hardly more a part 
of us than our clothes. All of the material of the 
body possesses some kind of organic life which is 
to some extent independent of the psychomeres. 
These only act intermittently as critical directing 
agents, and their presence is not always essential. 

We have considered the possibility of the psycho- 
meres being temporarily withdrawn from the living 
body, and found no insuperable physical or physio- 
logical obstacles to prevent such withdrawal. This 
possibility accounts for the cases of " externalisa- 
tion " of sensory and motor activities described in 
recent works on experimental psychology. 

Death, in our view, is a natural process neces- 
sitated by the high degree of specialisation of the 
physical organism, and especially by the permanence 
and solidity of some of its structures. It is best 
described as a kind of " moult." It is essentially 



THE NEEDS OF THE HEART 325 

painless, though usually preceded by suffering of 
some kind. It is credibly described as an extremely 
pleasurable process in itself, and may have been 
known as such to some generations of the human 
race. If such generations ever existed, their extinc- 
tion is easily accounted for by suicide, and the 
survival of other tribes who had a greater fear of 
death, these being the " fittest " to survive for that 
reason. The fear of death is a racial instinct 
making for its terrene prosperity. It has evolved 
with the evolution of man. 

The intellect may think out this view of the 
future life to the uttermost limit without much 
danger of arriving at any insuperable objection. 
But the heart may also find its peace here. The 
prospect held out to us is alluring. We need not 
sorrow for our loved ones. They are passed on to 
a more subtle joy, a more vivid realisation of 
their infinite possibilities. They are no longer 
fettered by the ponderous clay which encompasses 
and impedes ourselves. They dwell in higher 
realms, invisible to us as yet, but not far removed, 
with no impassable gulf between us and them. And 
when we go to join them, they are nowise debarred 
from appearing to us at our bedside in the forms 
we loved, and they may bear those shapes until 
such time as we ourselves shall have been taught 
by them to take wing to our more blissful abode. 



326 CONCLUSIONS 

And the sinners of this earth shall not go to a 
dreary place of punishment. Their suffering will 
lie in this, that their inmost nature is open to 
every gaze. Their soul-body assumes unconsciously 
a shape expressive of their prevailing thoughts, 
just as our own faces do in the course of years. 
Thus there is no dissimulation or deception. If 
even on earth people choose the society that is 
congenial to them, how much more rapidly will 
this be accomplished in a world where every 
thought is made instantly patent and perceptible ! 
Those characters which do not make for the welfare 
of the community at large will be easily identified 
and discouraged until by their own efforts their 
bearers succeed in bringing themselves more into 
conformity with their surroundings. Thus we have 
no need for a hell, nor for torturing devils. Those 
nightmares of the dark ages disappear before the 
new light. 

And when we take a cosmic view of the processes 
of life and death and eternity, what do we find ? 

We see an infinitude of worlds like our beloved 
earth swinging on their way through illimitable 
space, gathering up stray matter as they go. And 
from the surface of each planet their arises a gentle 
mist, a mist of living souls, generated by that won- 
derful alchemy of life which has its laboratories on 
the outer skin of the planet. In those laboratories 
the less highly organised species of matter are 



A BOUNDLESS PROSPECT 327 

trained in the course of untold ages to accommodate 
themselves in more and more complex organisms, 
until even the lowliest of material — but sentient — 
entities rises to become a psychomere and to take 
its place in the permanent service of a being akin 
to man. Thus is matter gradually made aware of 
its higher destinies, and the " reveille " resounds to 
the very depths of the earth. 

And that incense of souls which first mingles 
with the clouds and then transcends them, mounts 
higher and higher, increasing both in tenuity and in 
intrinsic worth and power, until it is fit. to leave the 
earth and inhabit the interplanetary regions. And 
even then the prospects are infinite, for, as I have 
shown in " Two New Worlds," there is an infinite 
gradation of densities both within and without, and 
the infinity of worlds is matched by our infinite 
destiny. 

And thus we stand, great and free, on this earth 
of ours, masters of ourselves and our life con- 
ditions, with higher and higher calls awaiting us 
beyond. We stand here fearless and dauntless, not 
in our solitary strength, but in the living con- 
sciousness that we, too, are born of God, that we 
share His freedom and His power, and that here, 
now, and for ever we may share His eternal bliss. 



INDEX 



Abnormal psychology, 208 

Abode of the soul, 163 

Absolute reality, 162 

Activity, 46 

Aerial existence, 167 

Aggregates, 103 

Aksakoff, Alexander, 313 

Amalgamation, 194 

Amoeba, 66, 69 

Amphipyrenin, 108 

Ancestors, 196 

Animal magnetism, 204 

Animals, 191 

Anthropomorphic images, 143 

Apparitions, 183 

Aspect of the earth from the 

soul-world, 176 
Assimilation, 11 
Assmann, 167 
Asters, 73 

Astral body, 109, 209 
Atmosphere, 165 
Atmospheric precipitation, 170 
Atoms, 212 

Automatic writing, 185 
Automatism, 209 

B&CTEEIA, 195 

Ballons-sondes, 167 

Barrett, Professor W. P., 216, 

303, 312 
Bille-Dahl, Frau von, 313 
Biogenesis, 80 
Biogens, 103 
Biology, 90, 208, 212 
Biophores, 146, 147 
Birth, 32, 70, 115 
Blackburn, Charles, 248, 284 



Blocb, 61 

Blondlot, 17 

Blood-relationship, 179 

Blyton, 219 

Body and soul, 99 

Boirac, 209 

Bones, 66 

Bose, 11 

Boyhood, 36 

Brain, 52 

Burke, Butler, 11, 80 

Burning bush, 157 

Business, 43 

Business of life, 39 

Butschli, 118, 119 

Carpenter, 303 
Cataclysm, 97 
Celestial potentates, 143 
Cell-bridges, 60, 106 
Cell- community, 150 
Cell-division, 117 
Cell-life, 150 
Cells, 53 

Centrosome, 73, 147 
Chemical reactions, 149 
Chemical species, 90 
Chloroform, 153 
Christianity, 131 
Chromatin, 72, 108, 146 
Chromosomes, 72, 146 
Civilisation, 41, 181, 200 
Cohesion, 111, 150 
Coldest temperature, 171 
Cold wind, 307 
Coleman, Benjamin, 247 
Colloid, 103 
Comets, 163 



33o 



INDEX 



Conception, 130, 198 

Condensation, 148 

Conducting layer of the atmos- 
phere, 169 

Conjugation, 71, 118 

Conservation of energy, 144 

Continuity of natural pheno- 
mena, 141 

Control, 186 

Cook, Miss Florence, 219, 224 

Cope, 12 

Corner, Mrs., 219, 224 

Cosmic view of immortality, 327 

Cox, Sergeant, 261 

Cremation, 151 

Cripples, 156 

Crookes, 218, 233, 247, 249, 256, 
265, 269, 302, 303, 306 

Curative hypnotism, 216 

Cytoplasm, 62, 147 

Dangers, 187 
Darwin, 88, 145 
Davenport Brothers, 209 
Dead matter, 26 
Death, 48, 68, 150 
De Barry, 119 
Definitions, new, 28 
Definition of a world, 88 
Definition of the human body, 

105 
Definition of the soul, 112 
Deformed conditions, 152 
Demons, 183 

Density of population, 166 
D'Esperance, Madame, 291, 313 
Determinants, 146 
Determinism, 64, 91 
Development, 127 
Devils, 308 
De Vries, 146 
Diagram, 99 
Dialectical Society, 294 
Differentiation of the cells, 71 
Digestive system, 52 
Dines, 168 

Directive elements, 150 
Disease, 46, 153 
Disintegration, 151, 195 



Divine ruling in the next world, 

143 
Dogma, 137 
Double, 209 
Drapery, 155, 286, 292 
Dream and reality, 18 
Dualistic systems, 97 
Duplex personality, 197 
Duplication of consciousness, 

123 
Du Prel, 216 

Earth memories, 155, 159 

Ecstasy, 185 

Eimer, 12 

Electrical experiments with 

Miss Cook, 234 
Electrons, 110, 148 
Electrostatic attraction, 150 
Elysian fields, 142 
Embalming, 151 
Embryology, 128 
Engelmann, 118 
Enjoyment of life, 44 
Epigenesis, 127 
Equality, 199 
Ethics, 180 
Eusapia Paladino, 209 
Evil, 180 
Exaltation, 209 
Exercise, 45 

Experimental psychology, 203 
Exposures of mediums, 292 
Externalisation of personality, 

111 
Extreme cold, 171 
Eyes of the soul, 174 

Facts, 16, 268 
Fairies, 184 
Fairy bush, 157 
Faith-healing, 217 
Family life, 43 
Faraday, 303 
Fevers, 153 
Fidler, 313 
Finality, 139 
Firmament, 137 
Fish, 156 



INDEX 



331 



Fission, 70 

Flame, 157 

Fluid, 211 

Force, 211 

Fourth dimension, 161 

Fox, Misses, 302 

Freedom of choice, 64, 199 

Free will, 91 

Gemmules, 145 
Genius, 185 
Germ-cells, 72, 125 
Germ-nucleus, 120 
Germ-plasm, 146 
Ghost, 159 
Girlhood, 36 
Gnomes, 184 
Growth, 32 
Guerilla warfare, 154 
Gully, 251 

Haeckel, 55, 130 

Hades, 140 

Hall, 218, 256 

Hamilton, Rowan, 86 

Happiness, 44 

Hare, Professor, 303 

Harrison, W. H., 218, 234, 217, 

256, 257, 274 
Haunting, 209 
Health, 41 
Hearne, 277 
Heitzmann, 57 
Helium, 26 
Henslow, 12 
Hergesell, 168 
Hertwig, 119 
Higher strata, 167 
Hodgson, Dr. R., 317 
Home, D. D, 302 
Homeric poems, 159 
Hyperbonlia, 216 
Hyperesthesia, 214, 216 
Hypermnesia, 216 
Hypnotism, 203 
Hyslop, Professor, 312 

Id ants, 146 
Ideals, 181 



Identification, 310, 317 
Idioplasm, 128 
Ids, 146 
Indian, 142 
Individuality, 102 
Infra-biology, 91 
Infra-world, 88, 162 
Infra-world memories, 130 
Infusoria, 120, 195 
Inherited tradition, 125 
Instrument, 40 

Intelligent communication, 187 
Intercommunication, 175 
Introspective school, 203 
Invasion of the earth-world, 200 
Invisible psychomeres, 147 
Invulnerability, 156 
Ionisation, 148 
Ionised air, 176 
Isothermal, 169 

Jerusalem, 142 
John King, 283 
Judgment Day, 132 
Jupiter Pluvius, 170 

KARMA, 198 
Karyokinesis, 72 
Katie King, 218, 288 
Kindred souls, 174 
Kingly souls, 200 
Klebahn, 119 
Knot- formation, 103 

Language, 33 
Laws of chemistry, 90 
Laws of nature, 22, 28, 76 
Le Dantec, 11, 45, 66 
Leduc, 11, 63 
Lehmann, 11, 63, 80 
Liberty, 163 

Life, definition of, 10, 28 
Life in the atmosphere, 171 
Life-period of atoms, 26 
Linin, 108 

Lockyer, Sir Norman, 88 
Locomotion, 173 
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 12, 144, 303, 
317 



332 



INDEX 



Lonibroso, Professor, 267, 303 
Lower organisms, 191 
Lubbock, Sir John, 294 
Luxmoore, 218, 234 

MACRONUCLEUS, 120 
Makdougall-Gregory, 256 
Marryat, Florence, 218, 247, 260 
Mars, 163 

Marshall, Mrs., 279, 283 
Mass of individuals, 24 
Materialisation, 291 
Materialism, 92, 96 
Matter, 14, 15, 19, 28 
Matter in terms of life, 21 
Maturity, 37, 120 
Maupas, 118 
Maxwell, Dr. J., 297 
Mediums, 187, 274, 284, 295 
Mental pathology, 203 
Mesmerism, 203 
Metapsychical phenomena, 209, 

297, 300 
Metempsychosis, 197 
Meyer, 58 
Microbes, 153 
Micronuclei, 120 
Micro-organisms, 151 
Minot, 118 
Mitosis, 72, 147 
Mohammedan paradise, 142 
Moment of death, 10S 
Monism, 97 
Monstrosities, 71 
Moon, 163 

Morselli, Professor, 312 
Multiple personality, 290 
Muscles, 50 
Myers, F. W. H., 214, 303, 317 

Natural form, 156 
Navigable balloons, 157 
Nerves, 51, 67, 105 
New equilibrium, 155 
New faculties, 152 
New psychology, 203 
Newton's law, 80 
Nirvana, 176 
Nitrogen, 196 



Non-Euclidian space, 160 
Noxious insects, 192 
N-rays, 17 

Nuclear organism, 107 
Nucleus, 62, 70, 110 

Objective reality, 272 

Old age, 116 

Ontogeny, 130 

Optional immortality, 194 

Organic body-building, 36 

Organic consciousness, 36 

Organs, 103, 125 

Orthodoxy, 272 

Outline of the earth-body, 155 

Oversoul, 96 

Overton, 119 

PAIN, 153 

Paladino, Eusapia, 301 

Paralinin, 108 

Paul, Saint, 96 

Peebles, 283 

Permanent survival, 193 

Personality. 40 

Perrin, Mrs., 283 

Phantom, 140 

Photograph of Katie King, 222, 

232 
Phylogenetic, 130 
Physical causality, 127 
Physical explanation of life, 62 
Physical life, 31 
Pillar of cloud, 157 
Pillar of fire, 157 
Piper, Mrs., 312, 317 
Pixies, 184 
Plants, 163, 192 
Play of features, 174 
Podmore, 303 
Polariscope, 176 
Politics, 43, 79 
Political economy, 78 
Poor ghost, 140 
Popular notions, 142 
Possession, 186 
Pre-existence,. 115 
Pre-formation, 127 
Press on " Katie King," 265 



INDEX 



333 



Principle of continuity, 141 
Principle of economy, 161 
Principle of value, 141 
Propagation of light, 80 
Properties of living matter, 11 
Protoplasts, 103 
Pseudo-mediums, 274 
Psychical research, 111 
Psychology, 85, 203 
Psychomeres, 146 
Psychometry, 209 
Psycho-therapeutics, 209 
Putrefaction, 117 
Pyrenin, 10S 

Eadiobes, 11 
Radium, 26 
Raps, 294, 300 
Regeneration, 129, 198 
Reincarnation, 197 
Renewing power, 68 
Reproduction, 11 
Responsibilities, 201 
Resurrection, 84 
Retrocognition, 209 
Return to earth-life, 186 
Richet, Professor Charles, 289, 

303 
Rosjers, E. Dawson, x 
Ross-Church, Mrs., 218, 247, 260 
Rotch, 167 

Salamander, 129 

Schmitz, 119 

Science, 79 

Scientific demonstration, 134 

Scientific research, 83 

Second childhood, 116 

Self-consciousness, 193 

Selfishness, 42 

Separation of the soul from the 

body, 111, 152 
Sex, 125 
Sexes, 195 

Sexual reproduction, 72 
Shape of birds, 157 
Shell, 140 
Showers, Miss, 261 
Sidgwick, Alfred, 76 



Sidis and Goodhart, 197, 290 

Skeleton, 50 

Sky, 176 

Sleep, 44 

Soap-bubble, 165 

Social activity, 173 

Social consciousness, 34 

Social status, 45 

Society for psychical research, 
215 

Solace of religion, 135 

Soul, 85, 92, 109 

Soul-body, 144 

Soul-division, 123 

Soul-world, 160 

Specialisation, 213 

Spencer, 121 

Spindle, 73 

Spireme, 72 

Spirit, 113, 145 

Spirit circles, 297 

Spirit forms, physical character- 
istics, 275 ; mental character- 
istics, 281 

Spirit hypothesis, 217 

Spirit identity, 282 

Spiritism, 204 

Spiritual body, 108, 109 

Spiritualists, 273 

Stainton-Moses, Rev. W., 209, 317 

Statistics, 197 

Statistical laws, 98 

Stoney, G. Johnstone, 81 

Subliminal consciousness, 214 

Subliminal self, 216 

Suggestion, 209 

Summary of theory, 205 

Sun, 163 

Sunlight, 173 

Superiority, 177 

Supernatural help, 304 

Supraliminal memory, 216 

Supra-world, 88, 162 

Swarm of midges, 158 

Sylphs, 184 

Sympathy, 182 

Table-tilting, 294 
Tapp, 226, 234, 243, 257 



334 



INDEX 



Teisserenc de Bort, 167 
Telekinesis, 209 
Telepathy, 204, 209 
Telesthesia, 209, 214 
Temperature gradient, 172 
Temporary separation, 114 
Tenuity of the gaseous body, 

149 
Terrene-world, 88 
Terror, 189 
Tetramitus, 117 
Thought-transference, 185 
Three-dimensional space, 160, 

162 
Threshold, 35 
Tongue of fire, 157 
Total weight, 148 
Trance-speaking, 185 
Trappes Observatory, 167 
Triggers, 144 
Triviality of communications, 

289 
Truth, 136 

Two-dimensional space, 161 
Tyndall, 303 

Ultimate fate, 114, 140 
Ultimate reality, 15, 18 
Ultra-violet rays, 170 
Universal soul, 93 
Unselfishness, 42 

Valhalla, 142 
Van Beneden, 72 



Varley, Cromwell, 218, 234, 303 

Veil of Maya, 162 

Verrall, Mrs., 317 

Virchow, 55 

Visibility, 147 

Vitalistic school, 12 

Vital principle, 108 

Vital properties, 11 

Volckman, 233 

Vortex rings, 158 

Waking consciousness, 35 

Wallace, Sir A. R., 87, 303, 312 

Warm stratum, 167 

Wealth, 41 

Weight of human race, 3 

Weight of a human soul, 148 

Weismann, 129, 146 

Welcome, 188 

Wider problems, 191 

Wisdom, 41 

Witches, 183 

Withdrawal of the psychomeres, 

152 
Will, 64, 193 
Will-o'-the-wisp, 157 
Williams, 12, 276 
Wilson, E. B., 54, 69, 73, 106, 

108, 118, 120, 127, 129 
Withall, Henry, s 
Working day, 42 

Zollnee, 160 



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